


It should be enough. To make something beautiful, should be enough.

by rudesunyoung



Series: It should be enough. To make something beautiful should be enough. [1]
Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 68,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24573391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudesunyoung/pseuds/rudesunyoung
Summary: "I suppose you do love me in your own way"or girls being in love, running away from love, falling out of love, and everything else in between.
Relationships: Jennie Kim/Kim Jisoo, Jennie Kim/Lalisa Manoban | Lisa, Jennie Kim/Park Chaeyoung | Rosé, Kim Jisoo/Lalisa Manoban | Lisa, Lalisa Manoban | Lisa/Park Chaeyoung | Rosé
Series: It should be enough. To make something beautiful should be enough. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1776145
Comments: 94
Kudos: 164





	1. brief info

Hey guys, 

So with everything currently going on, I've been constantly thinking of more and more ways to get involved and help out in any way that I can. As a result, I came up with this idea of creating a fic commission. The way that it would work is that if you wanted to donate to any of the BLM organizations or LGBTQ+ groups listed below, and then show me proof of your donation with a screenshot, I would write any blackpink fic that you wanted. 

Even if you don't have money to donate, that's perfectly fine! There are petitions that you can sign online and you can show me that as proof as well. 

So, this can be any blackpink ship and any type of scenario that you want. The organizations that you can donate to/or sign a petition are linked below: 

[Black Lives Matter ](https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/#)

[Black Aids](https://blackaids.org/)

[LGBTQ Fund](https://www.lgbtqfund.org/)

[HouseofGG](https://houseofgg.org/)

[Youth Breakout](http://www.youthbreakout.org/)

[GLSEN](https://www.glsen.org/)

[The Trevor Project](https://www.thetrevorproject.org/)

[The Okra Project](https://www.theokraproject.com/)

If you guys are interested in participating, then leave a comment below and you can check out any of these organizations that I listed. Once you've donated or signed a petition, then you can find me on twitter at [rudesunyoung](https://twitter.com/rudesunyoung). Just DM me your screenshot as proof and then I can get started on the fic. 

also just a disclaimer: I reserve the right to reject any fic that I feel uncomfortable writing about or that I feel is particularly insensitive or harmful.

Again, thank you guys so much and if you don't want to participate, that's perfectly ok!

 **UPDATE AS OF 12/25/20** : I will no longer be accepting commissions as I have filled all the slots. Thank you for those that reached out to me and thank you for those that have took the time to read my stories :) 


	2. you took all of me and left

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was so easy to make those kind of promises back then, to think that they could achieve everything that they wanted to in that small dance room. It's just funny that no matter how hard you try, everything always leaves. Sometimes, things just need to fall apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pairing: jennie/lisa 
> 
> tags: angst, post-disbandment au, lack of communication, mutual pining, longing, hurt/no comfort
> 
> title was taken from taeyeon's 11:11
> 
> request for [baeminhyuk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeminhyuk/pseuds/baeminhyuk)

**2013**

“Why do you still have all of this stuff up here?”

Jennie’s mother looks over her shoulder where she’s crouched down in front of a box of old clothing and used toys. Jennie remembers some of them: like the raggedy ann that she got during her seventh birthday and proceeded to take everywhere. Then there’s the Barbies that her dad bought for her when he was on a trip to Japan. The Bratz were her favorite, and she can recall the days that she would sit outside in the backyard, decorating them in different assortments of clothes and playing with them for hours until it was time for dinner. 

She pulls out a white limousine, the door hanging halfway off of the toy car, and snorts when she holds it up to show her mom. 

“I couldn’t get rid of those things,” her mom shakes her head. “Those are your memories.”

Jennie sets the toys aside and digs through the box, parsing through faded denim overalls, flannel shirts, and white cotton skirts with flower petals stitched along the hem. 

When she was smaller, her mom would always berate her for messing up her clothes in the grass or ripping her skirts whenever she got caught by the branches in the big tree on their lawn. And sometimes, when her mom wasn’t looking, she would hang upside down by that very same branch until all of her clothes hung, exposing her legs and her stomach, long enough for her to become dizzy and fall to the grass in a heap of laughter. 

Jennie closes the box and tapes it up, grabbing the permanent marker by her side and scribbling the word **CLOTHES** along the front. When she pushes it in front of her next to the other marked boxes, she stands up and crosses the room to help her mom. 

“Some of this jewelry would be good to give to your aunt,” her mother murmurs. 

She holds up a porcelain music box with a pair of affectionate songbirds nestled together among the blossoms. The edges of the box are decorated in gold with decorative embellishments, elegant curves, and hand-painted birds among branches that pop in colors of greens, blues, yellows, and reds. 

Jennie is almost hesitant to take it from her, but she does, popping open the lid carefully and watching as the hummingbird inside circles around to the sound of a soft melody. There are rings, bracelets, and a simple ankle bracelet inside that’s faded with time. 

Jennie sifts through the jewelry, already noting which ones her aunt would like, until her eye catches a piece of film wedged between the hummingbird and the compartment for the rings. Jennie squats down and pulls on the film until she’s able to pull it out of where it’s stuck and then sets the box down on the floor, smoothing the picture out along her thigh. 

It’s her mom－well, a younger version of her mom－but her mom nonetheless. The picture is faded and the colors are worn but she looks like she can’t be older than nineteen. Her hair is pulled back in a low ponytail and she’s wearing a floral dress with stockings and loafers that are almost as dark as her hair. There’s a younger man next to her, his arm slung around her neck, and cheesing right at the camera. 

His teeth are slightly crooked, but he’s handsome. His hair is curly and his suit looks a little big on him, but he’s carrying the same small black case that her mom is holding in the picture. 

“Who is this?” she asks her. 

Her mother sets down the containers of sewing needles and yarn, squinting at the picture, before she sighs and reaches for it, carefully bringing it closer to her face. Jennie watches her face, watches how her eyebrows furrow slightly, before she sits up straighter and smiles slightly. 

“That was my friend－um, we attended the same music school in college. He played the clarinet and I was on the flute.”

“Are you...have you ever talked to him or…?”

“Oh no,” she shakes her head quickly. “No, I uh－I have no idea what happened to him. We lost contact with each other.”

Something about the way she says that makes Jennie even more curious. She licks her lips, feeling how chapped the skin is, and angles her head down to stare at the picture. 

“Why’d you lose contact with him?”

Her mother takes a deep breath, looking at the photo for a long second, before she stares ahead at the wall. It looks like a plethora of emotions filter across her face: anger, confusion, resentment, before finally settling on sadness. It’s a strange thing to see that settle over her eyes and it’s what makes Jennie lean over to rub her arm. 

“I used to date him,” she says softly and then she lets out a breath, huffing quietly. 

“We were friends in high school, but then when we started in the program, we found ourselves spending so much time with each other that we just grew comfortable with it. This was taken at our first recital. He brought me flowers,” she chuckles and smooths her thumb over his face. 

“I had to hide them from your harabeoji because he didn’t want me to date while I was studying.”

“So you snuck around?” Jennie snorted. 

“Of course,” she smiles. “We would hang out all the time after sessions; go to the movies, watch a film at the cinema, and take walks around his neighborhood. I would always tell my parents that I was hanging with my friends from church.”

“What...what happened then－b-between you two?”

Her mother is quiet for a long moment, long enough that Jennie asks her again before her mom hands the photo back to her. 

“What happens to everyone at some point," she shrugs. "We got caught up in our studies. We didn’t have time for each other anymore and when I was accepted for a program in New York, I took it and that was the last time I ever saw him.” 

She turns away, looking down at the containers in her lap and smiles sadly at it, picking up one of the needles and tossing it back inside. 

“We hurt each other a lot those last few months. We said things and did things that were bad for us－ I wish I could apologize to him or...I don’t know－maybe go back and change things.”

“Change things how?”

“I would have never gotten involved in a relationship with him, for starters,” she sighs. “We were good friends and it’s difficult to be kind to someone that you care about. It’s difficult to move from friends and be partners when you have so much innocent history together. I think we ruined all of that－actually I’m sure that we _did_ ruin that. I’m okay with hurting myself, you know? I can put my own pieces back together, but it’s different when you hurt a friend, when you hurt someone close to you. You can’t see all their little pieces, you can’t put it back together the way it once was. When you hurt a friend, you hurt them irrevocably－you hurt them forever.”

* * *

**May 8, 2019**

**2:39 a.m.**

Lisa can’t sleep－which isn’t entirely uncommon given where they’re at right now and how she can still hear the music ringing in her ears. When she sits up on the bed, she can feel her hands shaking, almost as if they can feel the bass underneath her feet and the roar of the crowd through her skin. 

The shaking isn’t bad per se, but it is what keeps her up most hours of the night now. 

When she rubs her eyes, she can still see the throng of people underneath her eyelids. She can hear their screams when Boombayah had come on over the speakers, and the way the crowd had screamed and sung along almost in a blur of sounds, colors, and manic movements.

If she thinks about it too long, it’ll make her nauseous and the last thing she wants to do is throw up. She did that before they went on stage at the Fort Worth Convention Center. Just as they were getting fitted for their mics, Lisa had been standing off to the side, her fingers nervously tapping against her side as she peeked through the curtains. 

It was dark but the convention center was flooded with pink light sticks and the steadily growing thrum of voices. Every single person had looked like the other; every girl that Lisa was able to make out somehow looked like the one beside her, and the one beside her, and so on. It made her so nervous－nervous that they were going to perform for their first time in the United States and with only a few songs－that she bolted out of the waiting area and ran down the platform to find the nearest bathroom. 

She almost didn’t make it. She had to jimmy the lock on one of the stalls and thankfully no one was there to hear the harsh sounds of her knees smack against the tile or the toilet lid slam against the back when she finally vomited out her guts. 

It was mostly water and a little bit of fruit from the snacks that they had beforehand. Usually, Lisa would eat more－it was necessary to eat a lot when you were going to perform for two hours on a hot and crowded stage－but Lisa hadn’t been up to it, hadn’t been able to stomach the pizza that Jisoo had offered her or the rice balls that Chaeyoung had heated up in the microwave. 

She was kind of thankful for that now when she stared down in the toilet bowl, watching the contents slosh around in the water and float down to the bottom. 

Lisa had sat on the floor for a few seconds, waiting to see if she still had more left in her, but now all she could feel was how raw and sore her throat felt. She had groaned, rubbing her hands along the rim of the toilet, feeling the cool ceramic underneath her fingertips, before she could hear someone calling out for her. 

“Lisa!”

And the concert went well－amazingly well, actually. For all the nerves and the anxiety that picked at the back of her head and sat in the middle of her chest, Lisa had been swept away by the energy of the crowd, the cheers from their fans, and the smiles on her members' faces. 

Jisoo had snagged a pink cowboy hat from one of the fans in the crowd and she wore it throughout the night, singing into her mic, swaying her hips, and holding up the cell phones that were thrust in her face so she could pose for a selfie. 

Chaeyoung was all smiles, singing sweetly, sometimes to individual fans and running across the stage with just as much energy as Lisa. People kept praising her voice and it was no secret that she could sing, that she had stayed up late the other night gargling salt water and humming underneath her breath in the shower, doing everything to maintain her voice. She still blushed from all the compliments and the fans that screamed at the top of their lungs whenever her face appeared on the screen. 

Jennie－Jennie was like...it was weird to say that she was the center of their group or even the focal point of all the attention, but she just was. Maybe it was the way she moved her body, so different from everyone else on stage, or the way she had tied her hair in pigtails, the tendrils of hair so long, that Lisa could still feel them brushing up against her arm. For some reason, Lisa had gravitated toward her the entire night. Sometimes touching her waist, laughing behind her mic whenever Jennie made a particularly ugly face for attention, or just staring at her when the camera lingered just a bit longer than necessary on her face. 

Jennie said nothing and maybe it was because she was the one that found her hunched over the toilet, her face pale and her fingers shaking against the toilet rim.

Maybe it was because Jennie had rubbed circles on the inside of her wrist as they walked back to the platform after helping Lisa clean up. 

Maybe it was because just before they were given the go ahead to be taken to the stage, Jennie had lifted her hand to her lips and brushed a kiss to her knuckles. It probably couldn’t even be considered a kiss because it was just the press of her lips－just the skin of her bottom lip sliding along Lisa’s bone, but it was enough in a way to bring her back. 

It was enough for her to take a deep breath and close her eyes, to drown out the crowd and envision that they were in Korea again, envisioning that everything would be okay. Jennie had a way of doing those kinds of things, of touching her like she was the only woman that she had ever touched－of making her forget about certain things.

* * *

It’s 2:55 a.m. when Lisa glances back over at the clock on the mantle. She sighs and pushes the sheet away, sliding carefully to the edge of the bed and moving to pull her sweats on. 

Quietly, she makes her way around their hotel room, careful to not wake Chaeyoung up because she’s an incredibly light sleeper and if the older girl were to see her moving around in clothes, then she would ask what Lisa was doing and inevitably get up to go with her. 

Chaeyoung never liked to see her by herself for some reason, but Lisa didn’t want to deal with that right now. 

When she was dressed in a dark baggy hoodie and had her beanie pulled over her head, she pocketed her phone and then slid her sock-clad feet into her slides. Lisa made sure to grab her key card from the desk and then carefully left the room, holding the door behind herself so that it would close softly. 

Jisoo and Jennie are just two rooms down, their suite slightly bigger because they’re sharing with one of the managers. On the flight from Newark, they had argued over arrangements, Jisoo wanting to room with Lisa so they could play Animal Crossing, but their manager had shot that down, mumbling about how ( _‘she couldn’t get any sleep with them making so much noise!’_ ) and so Lisa and Chaeyoung had partnered up together. 

And when Lisa had glanced over at Jennie on the plane, she was staring right at her, her eyes unblinking as she settled back against the seat and laid her head against Jisoo’s shoulder.

As Lisa stands in front of their room, she slides her phone out of her hoodie and sends a quick text to Jennie, silently chewing on her bottom lip as she leans back against the wall.

**3:01 a.m.**

Come out?

It takes a few minutes, but eventually she feels her phone vibrate in her hand.

**3:07 a.m.**

What? Come out for what?

**3:08 a.m.**

Can’t sleep. Wanna go for a walk, get something to eat?

The three bubbles appear at the bottom of the screen to let Lisa know that Jennie’s typing out a response and for some reason she feels like the other girl is going to tell her to go back to her room. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

When they were trainees and Lisa was still figuring out the language and which restaurants wouldn’t be closed at the middle of the night, she would often ask Jennie to come with her. The other girl would refuse, telling her that it was too late, or that she was exhausted, or they could get in trouble. She always had excuses for everything, but if Lisa asked her hard enough, if she _really_ pushed, Jennie would always give in. 

Lisa could still remember the way they would wear the darkest clothing, their hats pulled all the way down to cover their eyes and face masks that Jisoo had washed the night before. The way Jennie would hold onto her elbow as they walked down the street; how Lisa would watch her from the corner of her eye as she looked up at the storefronts that still had the glowing **OPEN** signs on in their window; or the way they would laugh at each other when they found some hole-in-the-wall ramen shop and had to squeeze together into the booth to fit.

**3:11 a.m.**

Okay. give me a sec.

Lisa lets go of the breath that she didn’t even know she was holding. 

A few quiet moments later, the door to their room is pulled open and Jennie steps out, turning around to quickly close the door behind herself before she faces Lisa. She’s still wearing her pajamas, but she has Jisoo’s heavy navy parka on and a beanie similar to that of Lisa’s on her own head. She reaches in her pocket and pulls out two masks, handing one to Lisa before she puts one on as well. 

“Thanks,” Lisa mumbles. 

Jennie waits for her to fit the straps over her ears before she starts walking beside her. The hotel is mostly quiet with the occasional housekeeper milling through the halls with fresh sheets or clean towels or pushing a vacuum cleaner in front of themself. 

“Where are we going?”

They take the elevator down to the lobby, but Lisa doesn’t say anything until the doors open back up and they step off the lift. The receptionist looks up from his spot at the counter, regarding both of them with a warm smile and both girls briefly wave at the old man, before Lisa places a hand on Jennie’s lower back and steers her ahead to the door. 

“Wanna get breakfast?”

The cool air hits them as soon as they step outside and Jennie shuffles closer, reaching for Lisa’s elbow, and when her fingers curl into the material of her hoodie, she’s suddenly that fourteen-year-old foreigner again.

They don’t walk that far, not with them being in an unfamiliar city and without the supervision of their manager. But they walk enough that they manage to merge with people spilling out of the club, friends smoking outside, and a gay bar with flashy lights coating the asphalt and the loud music rattling the windows. 

When they cross the street at the stoplight, there’s a 24-hour diner open with a few people inside and scattered among the different tables. 

Lisa holds the door open for Jennie and walks behind her as the bell on the door jingles above. The restaurant is quiet, with soft jazz music playing and an older woman in a patterned apron clearing off one of the booths by the window. 

“Just grab a seat anywhere, I’ll be with you in a sec!” She says over her shoulder. 

“Let’s sit by the window,” Jennie says, jutting her chin towards the back. 

The leather seats squeak when they slide into the booth, but the restaurant is warm, Lisa unconsciously pulling her sleeves over her hands as Jennie glances at her. There’s still sleep in the corner of her eyes and there are lines from the sheet on her face, but Lisa doesn’t say anything, just grins at her.

_You’re so beautiful._

_I like the way you look when you just wake up._

_Don’t stop looking at me, don’t you dare take your eyes off of me._

Lisa has to bite down on her tongue hard in order to not say anything and Jennie must notice, because she folds her arms across the table and leans down to rest her chin on top of them. 

“You okay?” she asks softly. 

Lisa nods, but Jennie wants her to talk, always wants to hear her voice, so she waits patiently. 

The waitress finally walks over, and Lisa has just enough time to mumble out a soft, _“I’m fine,”_ before the woman hands both of them a menu. 

“Can I get you two something to drink?”

“Two coffees, please?” Jennie smiles softly at the waitress. “And a cup of water?”

“Of course, I’ll be right back with that. Take your time.”

Lisa only glances through the menu, her eyes skimming over their breakfast options before she’s looking over the top and watching Jennie’s face. She yawns into her fist, smothering half of the sound in her sleeve, and when she flips over the menu, Lisa looks away so she doesn’t catch her. 

Their waitress makes it back with two streaming mugs of coffee and a paper cup full of water, before reaching into her apron to pull out a notepad. 

Jennie orders an omelet with hash browns and Lisa opts for their signature French toast and an over easy egg. When their waitress leaves, Lisa reaches over to grab three packets of sugar out of the aluminum canister and rip them open, pouring it in her coffee. 

“You’re gonna be up all night,” Jennie snorts softly, and she takes a few sips from her water before moving to grab a packet of sugar and pour it in her coffee. 

“I can’t sleep anyway,” Lisa shrugs. 

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the air here, it’s really humid.”

It’s not a lie, but Lisa’s been in even worse sweltering conditions, and at this point it doesn’t really phase her, but Jennie doesn’t comment on that. Instead, she knocks their feet together and stares down at her coffee, carefully blowing on it to cool it down. 

“Thanks for coming with me.”

“It’s no problem,” she shrugs. “I couldn’t sleep either. Jisoo kept kicking me,” she snorts. 

“You’re sharing a bed?”

“Yeah. I was originally on the couch, but it was hurting my neck so I just climbed in with Jisoo. I don’t know how you always room with her. She’s the worst.”

 _It’s because you never say anything,_ Lisa thinks. _It’s because you never tell me to pick you, instead all you do is look at me._

“She takes my mind off of things.”

And it’s not supposed to mean what it sounds like, but Jennie looks up at her suddenly and the look that passes across her face is enough to make Lisa want to vomit. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Lisa mumbles quickly. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean for—“

“I know,” Jennie says and her face is back to what it was before. “It’s alright. I know what you meant, Lisa.”

_No you don’t. You never know what I mean. I never know what I mean anymore._

Before she can say anything, their waitress comes back with their food, setting their plates down carefully on the table, and both girls thank her before she steps away. Lisa doesn’t even realize how hungry she is until she feels her stomach grumble, and immediately unravels her utensils to take a bite. Jennie uncaps the bottle of ketchup and squirts a good amount in the corner of her plate, then uses her fork to break off a piece of her omelet and dip it into the sauce. 

It’s mostly silent between them as they eat. Lisa prefers it that way, sometimes it gives her time to think to herself, to get in her own head a little bit more instead of being outside of it. 

But right now as she chews on a piece of bread soaked in maple syrup, all she can think about is the yellow light that falls across Jennie’s features. All she can think about is the slow way she chews her food and the way she picks the onions out, but licks the taste off of her fingers. When she cuts her hash brown in half, she stabs her fork into it and then holds a piece up for Lisa to try. 

And when Lisa leans across the table, her knees knocking against the wood, and her lips clamping around the fork to take it, she tries to ignore the way Jennie watches her mouth. 

When they finish their food and leave a generous tip behind, Jennie takes her hand and stuffs it inside the pocket of her parka. Her skin is so warm, and that could be partially from the coffee, but Lisa knows that she always runs hot. 

She doesn’t let go of her hand the entire way back to the hotel. She doesn’t let go even when they get into the elevator and make it back to their respective rooms. At one point, Lisa even thinks that she can feel the exact moment that Jennie squeezes her fingers.

 _Tell me what you want,_ Lisa wants to say.

Jennie lets her hand go and leans back against the door, her fingers grabbing ahold of the door handle but not yet opening it. It would be really easy to lean down and kiss her. Lisa doesn’t know how many times she’s actively thought about that. 

Maybe it started when Jennie looked at her for the first time in the reflection of the mirror while they danced for Yang Hyun Suk. 

Maybe it was when they shared an orange Fanta underneath the bridge when they passed their third round of auditions. 

Maybe it was when Jennie climbed into her bunk that one night and pressed her nose into her back, almost like she could burrow into Lisa’s body. 

“Goodnight,” Jennie whispers and it sounds like she’s disappointed, it looks like it too in her eyes and for some reason Lisa reaches out to cup her cheek.

_Kiss her._

_Kiss her._

_Kiss her!_

But she doesn’t. Instead, she pulls her hand away, watches the way Jennie’s eyebrows furrow in confusion before she scoffs, and turns to open the door. And even though Lisa can clearly hear it, she ignores the way the handle rattles when Jennie slams the door shut.

* * *

**2023**

**June 15**

Chaeyoung finishes her first solo album, ten tracks in total and even teases a snippet of it on her Instagram with YG’s approval. 

For an entire week, Chaeyoung’s name is on the top of every major search engine in Korea and almost every talk show runs the snippet for their viewers. 

YG releases a poster with the date for her solo debut on June 25th, just shy of two weeks time. In the meantime, Chaeyoung goes on a slew of variety shows, sits down to talk with Billboard, and even has some of the members cover a piece of her title track on Instagram and Youtube. 

Jisoo lands a spot as a lead in an upcoming sci-fi drama with Jung Hae In and Lee Naeun and has to fly to Jeju to begin filming at the beginning of July. 

Jennie is busy in Paris, working with a new team of designers for an upcoming collaboration of handbags. 

And Lisa finds herself in China, waiting at the airport and debating whether or not she should FaceTime Jennie just to hear her voice or see her smile, when she suddenly receives a notification on the top of her phone.

**[BLACKPINK MEMBER CHAEYOUNG’S SOLO DEBUT TO BE DELAYED. MORE DETAILS TO BE ANNOUNCED.]**

It takes her about two seconds to actually read the notification, and then another ten minutes to actually process what that meant. And when she blinks her eyes, rubbing it to maybe clear her vision, only then does she recognize that her hand is starting to nervously shake. She sets her phone down on the seat next to herself and reclines back, looking up at the ceiling and at the harsh fluorescent lights. The white noise of people milling about at the boarding gates and announcements being called over the intercom should be able to drown out all the thoughts that are suddenly inside of her head－but they don't. Instead, she squeezes her eyes shut to dull the pain that's already beginning in the back of her head.

_“We will still see your solo debut through, Chaeyoung. Just please, understand that the company wishes to give Winner and their fans a present for patiently waiting for the members to finish their military service.”_

_“No, no that’s okay. I completely understand. But it’ll still be sometime this summer, correct?”_

_“Absolutely. We’ll just have to alter the dates on the press statements and your teaser. We don’t want to make you wait any longer.”_

**[WINNER ANNOUNCES COMEBACK PLANS. BLACKPINK MEMBER CHAEYOUNG’S SOLO PUSHED BACK.]**

In the middle of practice, Lisa uncaps her water bottle, pushing some of her hair away from her forehead as Jennie glances over at her. Jisoo is leaning over Chaeyoung, helping her stretch her legs, so she doesn’t bat an eye when Jennie walks over to her. Sweat sticks to her skin, making her cheeks flush with color, and her chest heaves slightly from exertion, but Lisa still smiles slightly at her and offers up her water bottle. 

Their dance practice had been particularly long today and maybe it wouldn't have been so unusual if it wasn't so unexpected. Their schedules were all over the place now with Chaeyoung's solo delayed. They had their own separate gigs, and they were supposed to run along the same time frame as it would with Chaeyoung promoting her solo, but now YG wanted them to focus on working as a group and updating their Instagram and checking in with fans over on VLive. 

Maybe it was to keep up with appearances, to make it look like things were okay. But maybe it was also just a way for the girls to once again take over damage control and quell the disappointment that many of their fans were feeling. 

"Hey," Jennie says softly. 

She does this thing where she hooks her pinky onto Lisa's, tugging the younger girl slightly into her side, and it should be gross considering they're all sweaty, but Jennie has been doing a lot of that lately. A lot of touching her quickly and hovering around Lisa when they weren't doing anything. 

When she takes a deep breath, glancing down at their fingers, she can almost feel the way Jennie is staring at her. It makes her nervous again, like that morning years ago when they sat at that booth in the diner and she didn't want Jennie to take her eyes off of her, but also she didn't know what to do with all of that attention. And when she looks back up, staring at Jennie in the mirror, the older girl lets go of her pinky finger and turns around to walk away.

 _Look at me,_ she wants to scream. _Look at me and tell me what you want me to do._

**[BLACKPINK MEMBER CHAEYOUNG’S SOLO DEBUT DELAYED INDEFINITELY.]**

In August, the girls are sent to Japan for a fan sign and Lisa tries to talk to Chaeyoung, tries to look at her face, but she’s been quiet for almost a week. 

Just before their scheduled fan sign, Chaeyoung grabs something from the vending machine and goes back to the van, slamming the door behind herself and locking it. Lisa tries to open it, but Chaeyoung won’t unlock the doors. When their manager finds them, she manages to get Chaeyoung to come out of the van and huddles the girls out and has their clothes and makeup looked over, but Chaeyoung still doesn’t say anything to any of them. 

“Can you talk to her, please?” Lisa begs Jisoo. 

They’re seated at the table and there have to be over ten thousand people packed into the mall. The fans are screaming, holding up posters, calling out for some of the members, and the ones that are already lined up to meet them, are squealing into their hands and near the point of tears. The constant flash of the camera and the steadily growing noise of all these people only picks at the headache that Lisa can feel coming on. 

“I tried to when we were on the plane,” Jisoo says, arranging the colored pens in front of her. “She wouldn’t say anything. Just give her some space, alright?”

Jisoo sounds tired, probably the most exhausted her voice has ever sounded to Lisa and that’s not like her. She’s always energetic, always thinking two steps ahead of everyone else, and it makes Lisa’s stomach churn anxiously. 

When the fan sign starts, they don’t have time to talk to each other, at least not about the situation. They play around, have to at least pretend for the camera and it works. Their smiles look big, they play with all of the fan's gifts, and Lisa ups the fan service to the throng of screaming fans. 

But when the fan sign ends and they’re all hustled back to the van and taken back to their hotel, Chaeyoung won’t stop crying in the backseat.

**[BLACKPINK TO RELEASE SPECIAL ANNIVERSARY SONG FOR FANS]**

“You know, sometimes, I wish that I never came to Korea. Sometimes, I wish that my dad would have forced me to stay in Australia.”

Lisa sits outside on the balcony, her back against the railing while Chaeyoung sits opposite of her. She’s in a robe, her hair still damp from the shower and she’s staring up at the sky. Underneath the moonlight, her eyes have this distant look to them and Lisa lifts the beer up to her mouth, taking a quick swig before wiping her lips with the back of her hand. 

“Even after everything?”

Chaeyoung doesn’t look at her, and maybe that’s because she knows Lisa can read her face, that she knows her every expression like an open book. 

Maybe that’s why she stopped looking at all of them. 

Maybe she doesn’t want any of the girls to read her anymore. 

“I’m just...I’m just tired,” she sighs. 

She closes her eyes and Lisa sets her beer down, scooting forward until she can touch the skin of her ankle. Goosebumps rise along her flesh and Lisa squeezes her ankle, waiting until Chaeyoung looks back at her. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. And it sucks because she doesn’t know why, but saying sorry won’t change shit. 

Saying sorry almost feels like a slap to the face and it feels wrong coming out of her own mouth. It feels wrong when Chaeyoung only smiles softly, her eyes tearing up until she has to push the heel of her hand against her eyes to keep herself from crying. 

Sometimes Lisa would hear her cry in the bathroom or in the practice room and it would hurt her—hurt her nearly to the very fiber of her own skin. 

People like Chaeyoung didn’t deserve to cry. People like her didn’t deserve to have their dreams pushed aside. 

“It’ll come, okay? It’ll come, Chae.”

But even Lisa doesn’t believe herself. She doesn’t believe anything from their company anymore, she stopped playing stupid a long time ago. But the words should be placating—they should be okay for now because that’s what they’re used to. 

At some point, it has to mean something, but when Chaeyoung scoffs underneath her breath, Lisa doesn’t blame her. 

“Don’t feed me that same bullshit that he does. Don’t you dare do that to me,” and she looks nearly as tired as Jisoo had been during their fan sign in Japan. 

She looks like someone who’s lost themselves—maybe not who lost themself—but someone that had it taken away from them. She looks like she doesn’t have anything in her anymore and Lisa’s never seen that in her face before. 

“I deserve better than that,” she chokes out and when she covers her face with her hands, Lisa feels her face crumble. 

“Don’t I deserve better than that?” Chaeyoung cries.

* * *

**[BLACKPINK’S CHAEYOUNG TERMINATES CONTRACT WITH YG ENTERTAINMENT. OTHER MEMBERS ARE STILL REVIEWING THEIR TERMS]**

**2023**

**August**

Chaeyoung doesn’t stick around for anyone to talk to her or for anyone to see her. Lisa doesn’t even know where she’s at until her picture starts circulating on Korean news channels and social media when she’s caught at the airport. 

Lisa tries to call her but all of her attempts go straight to voicemail.

**5:45 p.m.**

Please talk to me when you get the chance. Please.

* * *

Lisa’s mother tells her to come back home and she doesn’t hesitate to book a flight back to Bangkok once September rolls around. 

The night before she’s supposed to leave for Thailand, Jisoo calls her and tells her that they should meet. That it would be nice for the three of them to hang out for a little bit. With all of their conflicting schedules, Lisa can’t even recall the last time they were all in the same place at once, let alone in the same country. 

The restaurant is secluded but upscale, and when Lisa arrives, the hostess immediately takes her up to the rooftop seating where Jisoo and Jennie are already waiting. They haven’t ordered yet, but there are drinks at the table, and after hugging Jisoo, Lisa can’t take her eyes off Jennie. 

She looks older, not by much, but in a good way. It couldn’t have been more than a few weeks, but the tan that she got in Morocco is enough to make her skin gleam and her thick, black hair stand out sharply against the red jumpsuit she’s wearing. Her eyes look weirdly hesitant, but Lisa ignores that in favor of pulling her in a hug. 

Her perfume still smells like Coco Mademoiselle and Lisa remembers a long time ago, maybe when she was nineteen, of scrolling through the Chanel website as Jennie looked over her shoulder and pointed out the bottles that she wanted. Her breath was warm on her neck and if Lisa had turned around, she would have been able to kiss her right there. 

It seems so long ago, and maybe it was, but Lisa still wants to kiss her. When Jennie pulls away from the hug, she’s staring at Lisa, almost like she remembers that night too, but Lisa only swallows and steps back, grabbing her own chair. 

“I haven’t been able to get in contact with Chaeyoung. Have either of you?”

Lisa shakes her head and Jennie does too, something that makes Jisoo frown into her glass of champagne. 

“She won’t pick up my calls. I tried to reach out to her but then I saw on social media that she left.”

“I know,” Jisoo sighs. “She didn’t even tell me.”

“She didn’t tell anyone.” Jennie mutters.

“I mean—" Lisa starts. “I mean, can we blame her, honestly? After everything? It doesn’t—doesn't really surprise me,” Lisa scoffs. 

“She just books a plane to Australia and doesn’t tell us that she’s done with us?” Jisoo says suddenly. “Doesn’t even have the courtesy to tell us why? To tell us how she feels? How that makes _us_ feel?”

“Does she have to?!” Lisa snaps. “Who the hell are we? She can do what she wants. It’s not that hard to come to a logical conclusion of what she was going through.”

"You’re unbelievable,” Jisoo whispers underneath her breath. 

And maybe it’s the way that Jisoo says it—the way she sounds disappointed in Lisa, like this is somehow _her_ fault that Chaeyoung left—that Chaeyoung didn’t give a shit enough to say anything to their face. 

But it makes something inside of Lisa snap. 

“Fuck you,” she says suddenly. 

Jennie’s eyes widen in shock and Jisoo glares at her, her cheeks flushing with color. 

“Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said!” Lisa says, sitting up in her chair. “Fuck you, and fuck your whole _‘how that makes us feel’_ bullshit. Chaeyoung was hurting every single day. Every. Single. Day. And where the hell were you? Did you check on her? Did you talk to her? Did you try to do anything for her besides give her _‘fucking space?!’_ ” Lisa says, making air quotes around the word. 

“Go to hell, Lisa! How dare you accuse me of not being there for her? I was always— _always_ —asking about Chaeyoung and I was _always_ trying to talk to her, but she didn’t want to listen to me.”

“She didn’t want to listen to you because she was in pain! She wanted someone to back her up! To put their foot down with her!” Lisa stresses. “Or did you forget that when you were frolicking on the beach in Jeju?”

It’s a low blow, especially considering that the only reason why their album got pushed back and eventually scrapped, was because Jisoo decided to stay in Jeju for a film role that was offered to her. 

And it wasn’t unusual for them to pursue their own things, to have plans separate from the group because they had been doing it since debut, but this was different. 

With the solo halted and their album gone, it felt like—and Lisa had never told anyone else this—but it felt like they were being sabotaged. Lisa just didn’t know if she wanted to admit to herself that it was coming from her own members. 

“Screw you,” Jisoo says quietly and the way that she says it makes Lisa’s skin crawl. Jisoo is one of the nicest people she’s ever met; is the one who would help her with Korean when she first arrived; is the one that let Lisa come back home with her when she had nowhere else to go. 

Now, she doesn’t even think they can be alone in the same room together anymore. 

"Fuck you and fuck whatever you think about me. I _did_ try to talk to her and I _did_ try to see her. Don’t you dare—don’t you _ever_ insinuate that I didn’t try to help Chaeyoung because I love her—I always care about her and I’m sorry that we all don’t hide our love away from others like you do!” She snaps. 

Lisa’s head snaps so fast in her direction that she can feel a sharp pain travel up her neck and even then, it’s not enough for her to look away. 

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Jennie is quiet and Lisa doesn’t want to know what that means. Because no, Jisoo doesn’t get to do that. She doesn’t get to act like things are the same between Chaeyoung and the group, and Jennie and Lisa, because they’re not. 

And it makes Lisa angry suddenly, it makes hot tears well up in her eyes because that’s not fair. It’s not fair for Jisoo to take her words, to take her feelings, to take her secrets that she had held so closely to the inside of her chest and lay it bare like some tarot cards on the table.

_“I think I’m in love with Jennie.”_

_“You think?”_

_Lisa snorts and rolls her eyes playfully. “You know what I mean. Not that I have to think about it, no, but I know how I feel about her. I know that I love her, I know that she might love me too.”_

_Jisoo chuckles and rubs the top of Lisa's head. “I think she might too.”_

“Lisa?”

It’s Jennie who reaches out and touches her shoulder. It’s Jennie’s fingertips that run down to grab the inside of her elbow and it’s Jennie who’s always right there—who can be so close to Lisa, yet so out of reach. 

It’s the same girl that she grew to love when she barely knew how to communicate in the same language. It’s the same girl that she has looked at for years and years and who has never known—who has probably never wanted herself to know—that Lisa loves her. 

“Hey—” she whispers. 

“No, you’re right.” Lisa interrupts Jennie. “You’re right, Jisoo. I’m not gonna insinuate things anymore. I’m not gonna do shit for you anymore—figure it out yourself. I’m fucking done.”

And that’s the thing—being done meant a lot of things to them now. It could have meant being done with their friendship. It could have meant being done with this conversation. It also could have meant being done with dinner, but Lisa knew that Jisoo knew. She was smart. She knew that the way in which Lisa had used _‘done’_ was for just about everything. 

She didn’t need to say it. It was written across her face. 

Lisa stands up suddenly, tossing her napkin on the table and doesn’t wait before she starts to walk away.

“Lisa!”

Lisa doesn’t stop walking. Even as she almost runs into the waiter in her haste to get out, she doesn’t let the sound of her name being called derail her. 

She makes it just about as far down the first set of stairs before she feels someone roughly grab her by the arm and yank her back. She almost stumbles down the last few steps, but Jennie is quick to grab her and push her up against the wall. 

“What are you doing?!”

“What does it look like I’m doing?! You heard me! I said I’m done!”

“Lisa—“

“No!” The younger girl says, shaking her head. “No, you don’t get to stop me. You don’t get to say _shit_ because you weren’t there either! I _saw_ her.” Lisa says. 

“I _saw_ the way she looked. I _saw_ it in her eyes and I didn’t do a damn thing about it!” Lisa grits her teeth together, squeezing her eyes shut and thinks back to that night that she sat outside with Chaeyoung on her fire escape. 

“I fucking sat with her and she was so tired! She was upset and she was sad and I just sat there and watched her cried and where the _fuck_ were you two, huh?!”

“That’s not fair!” Jennie hisses. “That’s not fucking fair and you know it! I didn’t have time to come out, you-you know that! If I hadn’t been—“

“Yeah, if you hadn’t been in Morocco, right? Or Milan? Or Paris? Or New York? Things would have been different right, Jennie?”

And maybe it was unfair, but Lisa was finally, and probably for the first time, getting to see just how drastically distorted their entire group dynamic was. This was Jisoo’s first solo gig, an actual major acting role that would get her traction in film circles, but other than that she was always in Korea—always at YG. Jennie was hardly ever at the company anymore and when she was, it was usually related to some group meeting or a conference with the CEO. 

Lisa was spending most of her time in China with the group on a hiatus and when news of Chaeyoung’s termination had made it to social media, she was immediately booked on the next flight back to Korea, no questions asked. 

But Chaeyoung—Chaeyoung was always here. All the time. With her solo pushed back, Lisa could hardly ever remember not seeing her at the company building. It’s like she attached herself to the building in order to make it seem like something would come out of it if she just stuck around long enough. 

But that was just it—she was the only one sticking around and for what? For a few Instagram covers and some YouTube videos that she could create in ten minutes? The ‘space’ that Jisoo had told Lisa to give her, had only pushed Chaeyoung away. It made her lonely. It isolated her. With everyone else gone, it left her to fend for herself. 

And maybe that’s really what angered Lisa—that they left her. They left Chaeyoung to deal with it on her own. They left Chaeyoung to pick up her own pieces. They left Chaeyoung to do nothing. They left her by herself. 

It burns like a hot stake inside of her throat. It makes Lisa shake with anger because she didn’t deserve that, she didn’t deserve that at all. She’s mad at herself, yes, but she’s also mad at the others because when Lisa saw her crying on the fire escape she _knew_ —she just _knew_ that Chaeyoung had been alone for far too long. 

“Let me go,” Lisa says, shaking her hand off. “Go back to your dinner, go finish eating with Jisoo.”

“Lisa, stop it!”

“Don’t tell me what to do!” She snaps. “Go do what you do best—run back to her. Go back to your life, you’re so wrapped up in yourself that you can’t even see when someone else is hurti—”

The slap is unexpected, which is why it stings so bad when Jennie smacks her across the face. Lisa grabs her cheek, almost feeling the imprint of Jennie’s fingers as she tries to regain feeling in her jaw. When she blinks her vision clear, Jennie has stepped back and her face is a mixture between anger and shock. 

She can see the hand that slapped her is shaking now and it would be comical if it wasn’t so heartbreaking. But she holds her cheek and stares back at Jennie—stares at the way her bottom lip trembles and how there are already tears streaming down her cheeks, ruining her makeup. 

“I’m—I’m so—I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize.” Lisa says quickly, almost mechanically. “Don’t—just don’t, okay? I don’t want to do this anymore. It’s not—it’s not right. It’s not fun—I can’t—I can’t just—I can’t be here.”

 _I can’t be around you,_ Lisa wants to say. _I can’t watch you from my side anymore and tiptoe around whether anything will ever happen between us. I can’t be with someone that isn’t here. I can’t be with you when we can’t even be a group anymore._

“Lisa, please. I’m sorry—”

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

Silence settles over them. Jennie opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but then she closes it and stares at Lisa for a long moment. 

“W-What? Where, I mean, wh-where are you going?”

“I’m going to Thailand. I’m going back home for a bit. I’ve already sent in my contract termination. YG has it, so what’s done is done,” she says and it would be so easy if Jennie could accept that. 

Lisa did, at least. When she was busy packing up all of her things and shipping it back home, she skimmed through Jennie’s schedule, noting that she was only going to be in Seoul for the weekend before heading back to Osaka for some fashion event. 

Jennie could always pick up and leave, so maybe it shouldn’t have been so hard for her to accept that Lisa could do the same. 

It’s not like the other girl would miss her anyway. 

“You...y－you terminated your contract?”

And Lisa doesn’t look at her, not at first, but she has to if this is going to be the last time she sees her. And her eyes are red now, they look raw, and somewhere deep down inside the bottom of her stomach, Lisa is grateful for that. 

It means that Jennie cares about something, about someone other than herself. She cares enough about Lisa that it makes her cry. 

“I did, yes. I mean it’s for the best, right? We weren’t going anywhere. Things kept getting delayed and I wouldn’t have done anything without Chae. We had a good run, but let’s just give this up, okay? I’m starting to think that all that stuff we used to talk about—all those things we promised each other—all of that was shit.”

She doesn't believe a single word of what she's saying, or maybe she does. It's just too hard to tell the difference right now. 

And Lisa can remember it as clear as day. She can remember the four of them laughing and sharing their dreams amongst each other. How they would bike to the Han River and eat their ramen in the grass as they talked about what it would be like to finally make it. How they would do all these things and go to all these places and change things as a group. How they would always be there for each other and stick up for one another when it got to be too much. They had all these pipe dreams in their eyes and foolishly they believed them because they didn’t have anything else. 

All they had was each other and a dream of making it big and look where it got them? 

“Please...” Jennie says suddenly and for the first time, Lisa thinks that she might be scared. Her brown eyes are wide, her pupils almost dilated underneath the restaurant lights and it makes Lisa want to vomit. 

“Please, _please_ don’t do this,” she says quietly. “Remember what－remember what...what we said to each other? Do you remember?”

 _How can I forget?_ Lisa thinks. _How can I forget that we promised we would hang in there? How could I forget that night that I held your hand under the blankets and promised that I would always be by your side? I could never forget any of the promises I made to you._

But Lisa doesn’t say any of that. 

“You said－” Jennie starts and her eyes well with tears, her cheeks filling with color as she steps closer. “You said－ you promised, you _promised_ me that you would never leave me. You _promised_ that it was me and you. You promised!” she grits out. 

“I know,” Lisa mumbles. “I know I did.”

“Then why are you－?!” she says slowly. “Why are you doing this? Why are you－”

“It’s not fun for me anymore,” Lisa interrupts her. “Okay? Is that what you want to hear? It’s not the same as it was when we were younger, it doesn’t－” and her head is so fucking full of shit that she doesn’t know what else to say. Or rather, she has so much to say, but she’s so afraid. She’s so afraid of telling Jennie that it’s not fun being in a different country half of the year and not seeing her face. 

It’s not fun standing on a stage by herself and judging trainees in China when she has a group that she barely sees－let alone speaks to.

It’s not fun sitting in the backseat of a van and scrolling through Instagram looking through pictures of themselves that she can’t remember what it felt like in that moment. 

It’s not fun sitting around waiting for something that won’t ever come. 

It’s not fun watching the girl that she loves－watching Jennie－drift further and further away from her. 

“I don’t want this anymore.”

And she didn’t－ at least, not their circumstances. Maybe if things had been different. If they had a proper say in their group activities, if they were able to make more music together rather than separately. Maybe if they just got to be _together_ more it would have changed things. 

“We can talk to him. We can get lawyers, you know? We can－we can negotiate for better terms. We can. We just have to stick together and－”

“Rosie’s gone!” Lisa scoffs. “There is no more _‘stick together,’_ Jen. We’ve never had a say in any of this and we won’t get it now. It’s time we let this go－let it be what it is.”

“Lisa,” and Jennie reaches for her hand, her fingers circling her wrist, loose enough for the younger girl to pull away but she doesn’t. 

“Lisa, _please_ ” she begs. “ _Please_ don’t do this. Please, _please_ don’t leave me.”

And a year ago, Lisa could have never predicted any of this. It’s weird because she would do anything Jennie ever asked of her. She would follow her blindly like a dog and eat from the palm of her hand if she told her to. She was so gone for this girl that she wouldn’t have even terminated her contract, let alone let the thought cross her mind, if Jennie wasn’t going to. 

But that was a year ago and Lisa now, is nowhere near the same as the Lisa that she is today.

“Please, _please_ stay here with us－stay here with _me_.”

 _“Please－_!” she cries.

Besides this singing thing, all Lisa ever wanted was to be seen by Jennie. All she ever wanted was her attention－all she wanted was for her to look at her like Lisa looked at her. All she wanted was for Jennie to be happy, to be happy with Lisa beside her. But all these years all they did was glance at each other and tiptoe around something that Lisa didn’t know what to label. 

But Lisa was tired of tiptoeing. She was tired of seeing Jennie and then missing her for months on end. She was tired of thinking this whole thing was in her imagination. She was simply tired of being tired. 

But most of all she was tired of looking at something that she couldn’t have. She was tired of being a friend. She had enough of those. 

“I wish you the best, alright? Really, I _really_ wish you well. Take care of yourself.”

And Lisa doesn’t wait for Jennie to say anything. She doesn’t wait for her to grab her hand or to call her name again. She just brushes past her, almost as if she were just a stranger, and takes the rest of the stairs down to the street. 

Lisa doesn’t know how Chaeyoung could just up and leave, but maybe it makes sense that it was a clean break. It’s probably better that she didn’t tell them to their face or reach out in the end, because as Lisa walks the rest of the way back, it feels like someone just ripped a gaping hole right through the front of her chest.

* * *

**5 years later**

At the end of January, Lisa totals her car. She’s not hurt or anything, minus a few cuts and a slightly irritated shoulder disk, but her Mercedes is completely unsalvageable. This is how she finds herself in the middle of week－walking down the sidewalk with her hands shoved into the pockets of her coat and the wool scarf that her mother had sent for Christmas, wrapped around her neck and over the bottom of her face to keep it from the icy chill.

There’s hardly anybody out at this time of night, but Lisa had been held back at her studio, preoccupied with making sure that everything was on track for the contractor to begin working on expanding the space in the upcoming weeks. Between meeting with her accountant, holding classes, flying back from Thailand last month, and meeting with the developers; heading home at 12:39 p.m. was actually a personal best for her. 

And when she rounds the corner to the entrance of the subway station, Lisa lets out a deep breath, watching the yellow light inside glow from the stairs and hearing the fresh layer of snow that crunches underneath her sneakers as she walks. 

When she makes it down to the platform, Lisa takes her hands out of her pockets and walks over to the nearest vending machine, the one with the bag of Oreos and salted pretzel sticks inside. She pulls her bag off her shoulder and digs through it until she finds her wallet, pulling her card out and holding her wallet between her teeth as she looks for something good.

Lisa could make something at home, and usually she would, but this was more convenient. Well, either this or take-out and she had about a hundred different restaurant menus stuck to her fridge to prove it, but her stomach had started grumbling as soon as she left her studio and she was hungry now. 

When she punched in the code for a honeybun and a bag of Chex-Mix, she slid her card into the reader and waited patiently until the snacks dropped into the bottom compartment. She grabbed her stuff and hastily opened up the bag of Chex-Mix just as she could hear the train approaching the station.

The tiles underneath her feet rattle and the wind that whips past as her face as the subway enters the station is loud enough that her teeth shake when she steps up to the platform. The tires squeal as they come to a stop and as she waits, the doors slide open, allowing the passengers inside to trickle out before she can slip inside. 

It’s surprisingly warm inside the train and Lisa listens to the automated voice tell passengers to _stand clear of the closing doors_ as they slide shut. There’s only a few people inside of the train, so Lisa picks a seat in the back, next to the window, and sets her bag down on the empty seat beside her. 

Usually, she’d put her headphones in and lay her head back for the next thirty minutes, but in her haste to leave the apartment this morning, she’d left them on her nightstand and didn’t want to make another trip back when she realized that she had forgotten them. But the subway is quiet enough, and the only passenger that’s near her is an old woman with grocery bags tucked between her feet on the floor and her eyes halfway closed. 

When she looks out the window, she watches as the train disappears into the tunnel, the small lights that are fixed to the concrete wash out her reflection until the only light is the glow from her phone screen. In her reflection, Lisa can see the dark discoloration underneath her eyes and she pokes the skin with her index finger, sighing as blood pools underneath the surface, before disappearing. 

She needs to sleep more, preferably for more than three hours, but it’s difficult. It’s been difficult for awhile.

It’s not something Lisa wants to think about right now, so she shoves that thought into the back of her head and finishes the rest of her Chex-Mix, shaking the rest of the contents into her mouth and licking her fingers clean. When the subway slows as it approaches the next stop, Lisa balls up the bag and shoves it into her bag. 

The train rattles along the tracks and the harsh fluorescent lights from the approaching platform, stain the windows and spill across the inside of the train. Lisa lays her head against the glass and closes her eyes as the train comes to a stop and the doors slide open, letting the remaining passengers off. 

The same automated voice comes over the intercom again and the sound of light footsteps carry across the cabin until the passenger takes a seat directly opposite of Lisa. She can hear them set their things down and then the quiet sigh that they let out when the doors slide shut and the subway starts moving.

The lights flicker across Lisa’s face, casting shadows against the back of her eyelids, when she hears the other passenger’s phone start to ring. It’s the default ringtone of an iPhone and Lisa can hear the person fumble around in their back, quietly murmuring a curse word that she can’t hear, and then the solid thump of something as it falls to the floor. 

Lisa opens her eyes at the sound, turning her head to see what it was, when she hears the passenger answer the call. 

“Yeah? No, I’m taking the subway back.”

The water bottle rolls across the floor until it knocks into the side of Lisa’s sneaker, and for some reason, Lisa can’t bear to look up－to put a face to that voice that she’s heard nearly half of her whole life and then spent five years hearing it in her nightmares. 

But it’s her, and that single thought is enough to send the taste of bile running up her throat. She runs her hands down the front of her sweats, squeezing her thighs as she listens to the other girl talk. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise her that she still sounds the same; that she still sounds like that girl that helped her order food in Korean. That she still has that inflection in her voice when she’s irritated, almost like when they had ignored each other for a few days over a silly argument and she came to apologize to her. 

Her fingers are shaking and that sharp pain that hardly ever makes itself known on the back of her shoulder, flares up in bursts that cause her teeth to clench.

In some way, it makes sense that if the opportunity ever came, if they were to ever meet again, they would do so in the same way that they left each other－in pain.

When the subway pulls into the next station, coming to a screeching halt, the water bottle rolls away, down the end of the car until it hits the front of the seat. The doors slide open again, but Lisa doesn’t bother watching anybody pick up their things or board the car, her head is too preoccupied with those same dark brown eyes that stare right back at her.

Her tongue pushes itself against the back of her teeth as she tries to make sense of the person sitting across from her. She’s the same girl all those years ago, and at the same time it feels like she’s also a stranger. The only thing that’s not unfamiliar to Lisa is the rigid line of her body, probably a mirror of her own, as Jennie stares at her. 

She’s bundled into a heavy Polo Ralph Lauren coat, with dark slacks and boots that lace up to her mid-thigh. The white bucket hat on her head has a matching logo to her coat, and even though she’s still talking on the phone, Lisa can’t look away from her. It would be a lie to say that she couldn’t remember what she looked like－but it’s impossible to forget Jennie. 

The blood rushing in her ears is enough to dull the thoughts banging around inside of her skull, and nearly enough for her to unclench her jaw when Jennie finally ends the call. She slides her phone into her black bag, and if her hands are shaking too, then Lisa doesn’t catch that.

New York was supposed to create some type of distance between who Lisa used to be and who she was trying to become. It wasn’t like turning a new leaf, because Lisa didn’t want to see it as starting a new chapter－she wanted to be as if she was completely a different person. In New York, she didn’t associate herself with the idol in Korea, because it came with too much baggage. 

It came with too many memories of being surrounded－both by people that she cared about and by people that she had hurt. It brought back all of the pain, all of the fighting, all of the missed opportunities, and the regret that still followed her like a dark cloud every single day. 

New York was supposed to be a way for her to rid herself of the past, to pretend as if it never happened because that was easier. It was easier to ignore something and will it away, rather than confront it head on. And if Lisa had done anything these past five years, it was to ignore any and every thing that reminded her of that life back then.

Of course, it could never be that easy to get rid of a past like they had. 

“Hey,” Jennie whispers, and it’s not right the way her lips twitch into a slight smile. 

Did two people who had done enough damage to each other to last an entire lifetime, smile at one another like that? It seems out of place considering the way Lisa had left everything behind that night at the restaurant. It seems even more out of place too given the fact that the last time she had even seen Jennie, the other girl was crying and it made her vomit for three days.

So, yes her smile feels wrong because Lisa feels like she doesn’t deserve it. Not after the things that she said to her. Not after the way Jennie had begged her to stay and she walked away like it was nothing. Not after the look that she had seen pass in Jennie’s eyes when she told her that it was over－whatever any of this was. 

But her smile doesn’t falter. Her face doesn’t wilt like that night on the rooftop. Her eyes don’t shutter at the sight of Lisa. Sometimes, Lisa had envisioned what it would feel like if she could do it over again, if she could have taken everything she had said back and just started over－if she could just pretend that she hadn’t said the things she said and try again. 

Well, now it feels like this is Jennie’s way of trying again and something like regret and longing and bile claws it way up the inside of her chest. 

“H－” Lisa stops. Swallows, takes a deep breath, and starts again. “H-Hi,” she breathes out. 

And Jennie chuckles, her hands balling up fistfuls of her coat, and Lisa wonders if the other girl wants to punch her in the face as badly as she wants her to. 

When her tongue pushes against the back of her teeth, Lisa thinks about everything she could tell her right now. How she could start by apologizing for who she was back then. How she could ask－if she had any right－as to how Jennie was doing. She wanted to know if the other girls still kept in contact with each other or if they had all decided to start over again much like Lisa. 

In a different universe, Lisa would never get choked up in front of Jennie, would never not have the words to say to her. But somewhere along the way, Lisa altered that timeline irrevocably when she left and maybe it was for the better. Besides why would Jennie－Jennie who gave so much, who never asked for more but just wanted Lisa by her side－ have anything to say to her? 

All these different phrases and words float around in her head, desperately trying to catch onto the tip of her tongue but Lisa is stubborn and she is foolish and the way she talks has a way of messing things up. So the smile that Jennie gives her should placate her; it should be enough to make her feel like things are okay.

But they’ve never communicated like that before. Lisa had needed verbal communication, had relied on people talking to her and telling her how they feel and what they think. So, it was selfish to want Jennie to say something to her because she didn’t deserve that. But she wanted to. _God_ , she wanted to more than anything. 

And that yearning－that longing to be able to know what Jennie is thinking and where the trajectory of her life has taken her, hits Lisa right in the middle of her chest. 

When the subway pulls into the station, for a split second, Lisa opens her mouth to say something－anything to her－but Jennie is suddenly gathering her things and that pressure that clawed its way up her chest is suddenly puncturing her heart with a thousand knives. 

She grabs a hold of the railing above her head, swaying on her feet slightly, when the train comes to a stop and the doors slide open with a strong gust of wind. 

“It was－” Jennie says, carefully licking her lips. “It was nice seeing you－seeing you around, I mean.”

And she says it so casually, like a stranger would to someone that they had met on the line and struck up a conversation with. She says it like there aren't decades of secrets, and stories, and promises tucked between both of their hands. She says it like someone that has absolutely nothing to lose, no emotion, no skin, nothing. It’s the way her words are so unattached and devoid of feeling, that makes tears push at the back of Lisa’s eyes. 

And when she turns around, stepping out of the car and onto the platform, Lisa watches as she walks off. She watches through her blurred vision as the line of her back rounds one of the pillars and it makes her inside twist at envisioning that this is exactly how Jennie must have felt watching Lisa walk away from her. 

_Stand clear of the closing doors_

Lisa doesn’t even think. 

She simply bolts for the door, barely getting her leg through, when the train’s doors suddenly shut and the subway pulls out of the station. Her feet take her after the other girl and she hasn’t gotten very far, because the densely populated station is bare and the sound of her running alerts Jennie pretty quickly. 

“I need you to know－!” she says loudly.

Jennie stops, whirling around at the sound of her voice, and to see that her eyes are wet too－that she looks nearly on the verge of crying is probably only further proof that they only know how to talk to each other when they’re in pain. 

“I just need you to _know_ ,” Lisa stresses. 

_I need you to know that I love you. I need you to know that I’m sorry. I need you to know that I left because I hated being away from you. I need you to know that I’ve regretted it every single day. I need you to know that you’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. I need you to know that I’ve hated myself every single day and have nearly drank myself to death every night since wishing I could go back._

“I need you to know that I never stopped caring.”

And she didn’t. Her fingers hovered over Jennie’s contact everyday, hoping and waiting, that one day she could gather the courage to just hear the sound of her voice or listen to what her voicemail would sound like. She deleted all of her social media accounts, but it wasn’t hard to come across Jennie on the news or in the morning papers, like an abstract painting that she couldn’t figure out anymore, but wanted to so desperately. 

All these years she had spent hiding herself away, was really to mask how much she had hated what had become of them and what Lisa had done. All of their stilted conversations, one-sided arguments, and pent up feelings had made it impossible for Lisa to think back to the days of their youth, when everything was easier and simple for the both of them. All it did was suppress every thought and every action that she hadn’t got the chance to do: to kiss her, to hold her hand and have it mean something more, to feel the touch of her skin against her own, and watch the way that Jennie fell asleep crammed into the twin bed with her. 

Lisa takes a deep breath and her hands are shaking even harder now, but she can’t help it. This is what it must feel like to lose all control over yourself. 

“I never...I never stopped,” she shakes her head. 

And Jennie－Jennie smiles at her, but it’s not like the one she flashed in the subway car. This one is tight-lipped and it wobbles with the tears that have gathered in her eyes and are beginning to fall. And it strikes Lisa just how much she’s seen Jennie cry more than she’s seen her smile. 

“That’s good－” she starts and licks her bottom lip, roughly wiping her face with the back of her hand. “That’s good, it’s really good that you never stopped, Lisa.”

But she looks up at the ceiling, blinking her tears away, and shakes her head with a sad smile. The lights in the station make her eyes shine, but they’re bloodshot, and her makeup is starting to smear and it makes Lisa sick to have Jennie look like that at her. 

“I’m glad you never stopped, but I－” she says and it takes a second for her because she bites her lip like she wants to keep it to herself, like she doesn’t think it belongs out in the real world. 

“But I _stopped_ ,” she says softly and then clears her throat, speaking louder. “I stopped caring, Lisa. I stopped caring a long time ago. It may not seem like it, but there are little pieces inside of me” and her lips tremble as she grabs a hold of her bag and clutches it to her shoulder.

“I have all of these little pieces that _you_ took with you when you left me and I had to pick them up one by one, painstakingly for years. And I’m sorry, yes, I’m truly sorry for the things I said to you and the way I treated you, but I _tried_. I fucking _tried_ and you didn’t. You hurt me so bad that I have never been able to put everything back together. So, no, I’m sorry, but I don’t care. Not anymore.”

And when she turns away from her, Lisa watches for the second time as her entire life walks away. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked this and if you would like to have a fic personally written by me, then take a look at the instructions provided in the first chapter ❤️


	3. kneel before me, there's summer inside of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Under the late afternoon sun, a wedding is held to join two kingdoms. Under the late afternoon sun, a thirteen year old girl learns that she has always been seen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pairing: jennie/lisa 
> 
> tags: alternate universe-royalty, middle ages, romance, blood and gore, mutilation, yearning, explicit sexual content, religious elements
> 
> request for: lichumandeuksé

****

**1453－Present Day**

Jennie’s fingertips shake as she holds the goblet of wine in front of her chest. The white, gaudy veil covering her face is thick enough that she can hardly be seen, but the bishop’s eyes are piercing; a menacing pool of black that swallows his pupils whole. When Jennie blinks, his eyes drift down to the Bible held in between his hands. The paper is translucent but aged, wrinkling at the edges and tattered at the corners from years of use. 

Between verses, the bishop would lick his lips, swallowing down a breath and running a single finger down the length of the page before he would turn it. Jennie eyed his face, noting the lines around his eyes, the clear－almost pasty complexion of his skin that made him look like an apparition. His bones stood out, stretching underneath his skin so you could see the impression of his knuckles, the jut of his cheekbones, and his frail shoulders that could barely withstand the weight of all his regalia. 

When Jennie was a little girl, she would admire the robes of the bishops: their clothing decorated with jewels, embroidered with ornate religious symbols and crosses that showed their likeness to God. And she had admired the material, always silk and smooth to the touch, trailing behind the men as they disappeared behind chambers and stood at the front of the Church. Even now, through the material of her veil, Jennie marvels at the gold necklaces that adorn the bishop and the different emblems along his stole stitched in gold and written in Latin.

_"Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."_

He points with one bony finger at the two of them. His hand shakes as well, but he’s also wearing a ring, one with a single gold circlet and a red ruby set in the middle. If Jennie were to lean forward and pull her veil back, she could make out the insignia on the inside of it. The caricature of a horse standing on its hind legs while the sky opened up to it. 

When she was little, whenever the bishop would visit the town and collect gifts and prayers for the priest, Jennie and many of the other children, would run forward to kiss that very same ring. She can remember pressing her lips, chapped and slightly dry, to the cool stone. Waiting with bated breath to feel God speak to her, to hear someone whisper in her ear, but to only feel the weight of the bishop’s hand as he stroked the back of her head. 

Even now, Jennie almost wants to kiss it again, to be reminded of who she was back then.

_"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law."_

He lowers his hand, signaling for the both of them to kneel down before him. The Church is silent, the only sounds are of Jennie and Lisa shuffling to their knees and bowing their heads as the bishop moves to stand between them. 

His presence is like a shadow, following their every move, as he lifts both of his hands and begins chanting a prayer in Latin. His words are hushed, almost like a whisper, only for the two women to hear. 

It reminds Jennie of the way she used to pray beside her bed every night; with the moonlight seeping through the window and curtains billowing outwards, she would kneel down next to her mother and recite every line almost like muscle memory.

And when her knees would sting and her eyes would grow heavy, her mother would help her into bed and tuck her underneath the sheets, pushing her hair off of her face and murmuring words like, _‘I love you,’_ and _‘you’re my beautiful girl,’_ or _‘sleep well and dream of God.’_

Jennie lifts her head when the priest joins the bishop at his side, his clothing less ornate and ostentatious, in simple black robes and his face ashen and pale as he holds out his hand for the goblet. 

Jennie presents it to him and the priest murmurs another prayer underneath his breath before he pulls out a small vile from around his neck, unscrewing the top and pouring a slight amount into the wine. He says another prayer and then both men move over to Lisa, following the same custom, before the bishop gestures to both women.

_“Partake of this wine, which will symbolize your commitment to God, to your kingdom, and to each other.”_

The servant standing off to the side, gently lifts the veil up, just until Jennie’s mouth is exposed, so she can take a sip. The wine is bitter, but smooth, and slides down her throat with a sweet after taste. When she is finished with it, Jennie licks her lips, tasting the alcohol and fresh strawberries, and something that feels like God itself is inside of her. 

They offer their goblets to the bishop and the servant steps away.

_“Let us witness the joining of these two kingdoms. Princess Jennie Kim of Lesyeux and Queen Lalisa Manoban of Elyrinth.”_

The entire chapel stands to their feet while Jennie and Lisa kneel up as well, bowing their heads once again towards the bishop, before turning to face each other. 

The veil is so thick that Jennie can barely make out Lisa's face, but she can see the crown that rests on top of her head. It gleams underneath the beams of sunlight that reflect off of the glass-stained windows. The cross on the top glimmers in gold and rests atop an ornate gold arch adorned with diamonds and rubies that reflect the colors of her gown. The cap is a deep blood red and sits inside of a band decorated with crosses and embellished with emeralds, amethysts, and oriental jewels that shimmer so magnificently they appear wet. 

It’s only the second time Jennie has ever seen the crown of Elyrinth, but it already asserts Lisa’s power over everyone else in the Church. 

When the younger woman leans forward, she does so with cautious fingers, gently grabbing the ends of the veil and lifting it slowly to reveal Jennie’s face. Sunlight washes across her face, revealing the gold details around her eyes, the shimmer along her cheekbones, and the nude balm pressed into her lips that made her tan skin look luminous and dewy. 

Lisa stares at her for a long second, her eyes taking in every small detail of her face and it makes Jennie nervous. In some form or another, she hopes that what Lisa sees isn’t the young girl that followed her down to the rivers, that chased her on horseback, or the girl who cried during dueling lessons when Lisa would strike her too hard. 

She hopes that Lisa only sees her Queen. 

“You’re beautiful,” she murmurs and Jennie closes her eyes on an exhale. She feels lightheaded, like her body isn’t physically here anymore. But that’s not right because she can feel the sunlight on her skin, and the material of the dress, and the wine in the back of her throat. 

It’s with even gentler movements that Lisa’s fingers move to cradle her face. Her hands are so large that they cover her ears, they block out the murmurs of their guests and the stray noises of the Church. 

When she feels her face being angled upwards, Jennie opens her eyes and blinks away some of the sunlight to see Lisa smiling at her. Her smile used to terrify her. It would torment her in her sleep and throughout the day because whenever Lisa smiled, she did so to disarm you－she did it because she wanted you to be very afraid of her. 

But, Jennie isn’t afraid of Lisa－not now, not anymore. 

Her hands disappear, long enough for the bishop to present Lisa with the crown of Elyrinth, the one that belonged to her mother. It’s less grandiose than Lisa’s, but it’s still brilliant; shining with rubies along the band and a silver cross in the front with Elyrinth’s insignia inscribed underneath the arches. The diamonds that are adorned along the top glitter underneath rays of sunlight. It’s absolutely beautiful and for some reason, Jennie finds herself holding her breath. 

Lisa stares at the crown and then leans forward to fit it over Jennie’s head. The weight that settles above her skull makes her shudder and want to vomit at the same time. 

This crown means more than her life－this crown means that her life is now this kingdom. That her duties are to the people of Elyrinth, to Queen Lisa, and to extending their kingdom and this bloodline. 

When she was a princess, it was easier to ignore these duties because they weren’t her responsibility. When she was young, she could spend hours outside, running through the garden and eating strawberry pastries from the kitchen window without a second glance. But now, now those memories belong to a child－a child that doesn’t exist anymore, a child that can never go back to being a child ever again. 

When Jennie opens her eyes, Lisa is still staring at her. It’s with an emotion that she can’t place, and she wants so badly to know what Lisa is thinking. She wants to know what the crown of Elyrinth looks like on her head; she wants to know whether or not Lisa can see the kingdom in her very own eyes, or if she can see anything at all past all the regalia and formalities. 

Lisa’s fingers find their place along the sides of her neck, her thumb pressing lightly into the center of her throat. Jennie gulps, feeling her throat bob against Lisa’s thumb and watches as the other girl passes her eyes over her figure, from the top of her crown, to the end of her wedding dress. Her gaze is so intense that by the time Lisa’s eyes find their way back to her own, Jennie can feel herself tremble underneath the fabric.

_Tell me I look like your Queen._

_Tell me that this crown was meant for me._

_Tell me that this is where I belong._

Jennie doesn’t say any of that, but she can feel her body prickle with the sensation of those words. She feels like when Lisa stares back at her, and when she digs the tip of her fingers just a little bit more firmly into the skin of her throat, that she probably understands what Jennie says. 

Her thumb slides up, just gently pushing at the cleft of her chin and then lightly grazing the skin of her bottom lip. When she pushes forward, Jennie can feel her thumb press into her flesh and the sensation is enough to make her eyes close again. 

When they kiss, it’s slow. Just a matter of two people feeling each other, but when Lisa angles her head to the side, their noses knock into one another and suddenly it’s not a chaste kiss anymore. Lisa licks at the seam of her lip, pushing her tongue against the skin, and it causes Jennie to gasp, giving the other woman the opportunity to dip her tongue inside and taste the inside of her mouth. 

Flavors like wine, mint, and the barest hint of fruit explode along her tongue and behind her teeth. It makes Jennie grip both of her wrists, holding on to Lisa－holding on to the Queen. Kisses shouldn’t make her want to moan, they shouldn’t make her want to strip bare in front of the altar and expose herself to her wife. 

Kisses shouldn’t make you breathless, but that’s exactly what Lisa does. Her teeth nip at her lip and worries the skin at the edge of her mouth until Jennie whimpers, almost as if she’s hurt－almost as if Lisa’s mouth alone could harm her. 

But Lisa is quick to mend any pain. She simply presses her lips against the other side of her mouth, the top of her nose and in the middle of her forehead, before she pulls away. 

The entire Church erupts with applause. 

Jennie tries to gain some semblance of reality in her head, but when she blinks her eyes open, all she sees are particles of light and Lisa. Her crown looks gilded by the rays of sunlight, almost animated, but it stirs something within the deepest parts of her body. 

This is her Queen and this is her kingdom now. 

She takes another breath, her eyes shaking slightly when Lisa steps back and takes a hold of her hand. Her fingers lace between her own, with her thumb finding her knuckle and rubbing small circles into it. 

It’s the second time they’ve touched each other, and yet Jennie can’t stop the goosebumps from spreading along the back of her hand and up the length of her spine. 

When they turn to face their guests, everyone is either clapping, hollering, or crying. The sea of faces before them makes Jennie dizzy, her hand tightening around Lisa’s own, until the other woman pulls her into her side, tucking her hand in the bend of her elbow.

 _Hold onto me,_ her body says.

And Jennie does－digging her fingernails into the material of Lisa’s sleeve.

* * *

Following the ceremony, the procession takes them from the Church to the Royal Kingdom of Elyrinth, where guests, friends, and family members were to gather and join the new rulers for food and celebration. 

Just before they prepare to meet their guests, Lisa pulls Jennie to the side, underneath one of the large windows that looks out to the East where the sun would set. 

They haven’t spoken since the ceremony, too busy waving at the people of Elyrinth as they rode through the procession and stopping to gather gifts filled with lotions, herbs, meat, and linen in weave baskets presented by commoners. 

It’s a lavish and somewhat ostentatious affair, one that had Jennie breathless and exhausted by the time they reached the kingdom. The maids had taken their gifts inside, probably to set them alongside the other gifts that were already waiting for them.

“Are you okay?” Lisa asks her, one of her brows furrowing in concern. 

It’s such an odd expression to see on her face, but it warms Jennie to know that she cares enough to ask how she’s doing, that even underneath all of her silk and robes and jewels that Lisa is still Lisa. 

“I am...okay, yes,” she says slowly, feeling the words out in her mouth. “I think..I think I might want to lie down, though,” she grins. 

Lisa laughs quietly, holding onto her hand and stroking the large garnet stone on her ring finger. It shines underneath her thumb, glossy from the moisture on her skin and the light filtering in through the window. 

“Unfortunately, my Queen, I don’t think that’s possible right now.”

It brings a smile to her face hearing Lisa call her that, so she rolls her eyes fondly and tells the other woman to say it again. 

“My Queen,” Lisa murmurs. “My Queen of Elyrinth.”

Lisa's hand travels up the length of her arm, feeling over lace patterns stitched into her sleeve and over the gold beaded necklace with her mother’s name that sits at the base of her throat. Lisa’s fingertips trace the outline of her collarbones, just barely grazing over her skin, but enough to make Jennie shake. 

“You are my Queen now, aren’t you?”

It’s a rhetorical question, Jennie knows that, but it doesn’t stop her from nodding her head. She reaches for Lisa’s hand, pulling it over to the front of her gown to press it into the area of where her heart would be. She knows that her pulse is racing－in part from the ceremony and then the precession that followed－and she hopes Lisa can feel it too. 

“My heart…” she murmurs. “My heart feels like I am your Queen.”

And before the other woman can say anything, she moves Lisa’s hand again to press her fingertips to her lip. Her skin is rough, calloused from sword training, tending to the horses, and years fought in battles－some won, and in others, lost. 

But Jennie also remembers these hands once belonging to that little girl that held a flower out to her in the fields. To the girl that took her hand as they walked through the forest and told her faerie tales. To the girl that drew a sword at her throat and fought her until Jennie cried out of exhaustion. To the girl that danced across the room from her and followed her at festivals and fed her plums and fresh meat, and grapes from her very fingers. To the girl that saw her bare for the first time and touched her as if she had never seen a woman in her entire life. 

Lisa’s fingers have seen so much and could tell any story better than a minstrel in a market or at a royal court spinning tales for entertainment. 

Jennie kisses her fingertips, just a subtle press, to remind her of their kiss at the altar－ to remind her of what they shared in front of everyone at the Church. 

“My lips,” she smiles. “My lips also tell you that I am your Queen.”

Lisa ducks her head, her eyelashes brushing her cheek, as she looks down at her feet. When she makes eye contact with Jennie, the lines in her face are softer now, no longer etched in concern like they were moments ago. 

It makes Jennie reach out with her other hand, cupping her cheek in her palm and thumbing the skin underneath her eye. 

“Thank you,” Jennie whispers.

_For choosing me. For fighting with me. For playing with me. For looking at me and never taking your eyes off of me. For touching me. For asking for my hand in marriage. For allowing me to be your Queen._

“I should be saying that to you,” Lisa chuckles, laying her hand over Jennie’s. She turns her head, pressing a firm kiss into the center of her palm and breathing in the scent of her perfume at her wrist. 

"We don't have to stay long if you wish," Lisa says quietly. "I know that this has been a long day for the both of us, but as long as we shake hands and greet them, we only have to stick around for an hour or so." 

The thought sounds great to Jennie. She is quite tired and she desperately wants to let her hair down and retire in their chambers, maybe even share a bath of salts and incense with her wife, but this is _their_ wedding and Jennie doesn't want to see this image disappear from her mind just yet. She wants to walk out on Lisa's arm. She wants everyone to see the crown of Elyrinth on her head. She wants everyone to know that the ring on her finger is that of Elyrinth, her place and her own home now. 

"I'm okay with hanging around for a little longer," she grins. 

"You just want everyone to see your crown," Lisa snorts, rolling her eyes fondly. 

And Jennie flushes, her face turning red with the knowledge that Lisa knows her so well. She's known her ever since they were children. 

"Shut up," she mutters. 

Lisa pulls her in by her hip and laughs when Jennie pretends to punch her shoulder. She kisses her brow and puts a finger under her chin, tipping her head up to kiss her nose. "I am not wrong, no?"

"I'm not dignifying that with a response," Jennie mumbles. 

Lisa's laugh is so loud that it makes Jennie smile. It reminds her of the way she laughed when Lisa had first seen her royal crown. It reminds her of the way Lisa laughed when they chased after chickens and only managed to catch one. It reminds her of a lot of things. 

“Then shall we go entertain our guests then, my love?”

Jennie nods, curling her arm into Lisa’s side as she pulls her away from the window. The sun is beginning to set, a stream of orange and pink that falls across the sky in waves. It makes the crown on Lisa’s head shimmer in colors.

* * *

The grand hall is decorated in vibrant colors and filled with lively music and guests from all over Elyrinth and around the country. Long tables are situated in the center, spilling over with baskets of bread, fresh meat, potatoes, and fruit from neighboring countries. 

A separate table is decorated in pastries and set next to goblets filled with varying flavors of wine and alcohol. The scent of the wine permeates the room, spilling into every crevice and coating the fragrance throughout the walls of the castle. 

Lisa and Jennie take their time meeting with guests, saying hello to the children that run in from playing outside in the kingdom gardens, to previewing some of the entertainers that juggle objects, light balls of fire from their torches, or dance to a harmonic arrangement. 

They meet the Prince of Albania, a slender man with broad shoulders and sharp features that make him look gout. The Duke and Duchess of Italy kiss their hands, complimenting them for the lavish ceremony and offering a necklace to Jennie with diamonds made in Vienna. 

The Princess of Belgium tells them a story of her journey to Elyrinth and laughs almost as loud as the children about an ordeal off the coast of England. They greet other nobles from Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, India, and Nigeria. Some faces, Jennie is able to recognize, slightly aged over the years, but still filled with childish features and boisterous laughs that Jennie can trace back to her childhood. 

Others are unrecognizable, new members of the royal family or individuals that were able to successfully overthrow and conquer the former government. 

Jisoo, the Royal Highness from the Kim Dynasty, is easily one of the most recognizable faces that Jennie can make out from their guests. She smiles at her from across the room, her lips dripping in red paint as she takes a bite out of an apple and licks the juice from her mouth. Her eyes dance in amusement as she glides across the room, bowing to other guests and demurely speaking when spoken to, and Jennie envisions what her voice must sound like now. 

The closer she draws to the couple, the more Jennie’s smile grows to match Jisoo’s own. Her ceremonial hair is molded into shape, decorated with ornaments of gold and red to match the color of her lips. Her hanbok is also a deep shade of red, patterned with floral art and intricate designs that loop and intersect with each other to create stunning artwork along her clothing. The gold phoenix stands out as a large pendant, signaling her status as nobility, a stark contrast to the garments and dresses that Jennie remembers of her wearing as a child.

“You’ve gotten uglier,” Jisoo comments, her eyes raking deliberately over Lisa. 

The other woman rolls her eyes, tightening her grip on Jennie’s hand as she ignores her. “You came here to insult me at my own wedding? I should have you hung from that very window,” Lisa says, gesturing out towards the cliffs. 

Jisoo’s laughter is bright and loud as it always was, and she even lifts her hand up to hide her smile behind it, but it’s no use. Even her eyes are grinning. 

“Your Queen would behead you herself if you so much as laid a finger on me,” Jisoo smiled serenely. “Do you not remember the days of our youth?”

And it makes Jennie laugh as well, thinking back to the summers that they spent together: holed up behind castle walls, wandering through the market and haggling with merchants, swimming in the lagoon, and wrestling in the grass until they were covered in mud and sticky from the soil. 

Jisoo had always defended her when they were younger, sticking up for and keeping Lisa at bay when she became too aggressive. Their kinship had made Jennie believe that they were almost sisters, close enough to be of the same bloodline, and it always made her ache to know that Jisoo would never be a part of her－at least not familial wise. 

“I’ve missed you,” Jennie murmurs, completely out of nowhere. 

Lisa squeezes her hands, she knows of the letters that Jisoo and her exchange, of the gifts that they send each other and the visits that are so far apart and spaced out, that Jennie can hardly remember them anymore. 

Jisoo leans forward and kisses her cheek, her lips smooth, and her skin smelling of fresh flowers and honeysuckle. It reminds Jennie of the times she would spend standing outside the kitchen, listening to the cooks prepare their meals and secretly hoping that one of the maids would return with fresh pork, a loaf of bread, or chestnuts for her to nibble on. 

It reminds her of her childhood. Jisoo reminded her of being at home. 

“I’ve missed you as well,” she says and leans back to hold her hand. Her fingers are long and slim, easily covering Jennie’s own as she cradles them to her chest. 

“But I can also see that you’ve been taken care of in my absence. You look happy, Jennie. You look like you belong to someone here－to someone that loves you.”

* * *

They dance for the first time along the floor, surrounded by guests and following the music that flows from the live band playing an organ, flutes, a harp, and a bagpipe. 

Their gowns create trails, billowing out on the floor and following their every movement as Lisa guides them both around the room. Her hand is firm on Jennie’s waist, holding her to her chest as she watches with her eyes and leans down to kiss her forehead. 

When the music slows down, Lisa pulls her even closer, holding her beneath her hands and spinning Jennie outwards until her gown creates a dazzling shimmer of white along the floor. The color of their gowns bleed into one another, swaying and gliding with the movement of their bodies, nearly swallowing the floor with just the two of them dancing. 

Jennie lays her head on Lisa’s shoulder, feeling the jewels that decorate the material and the fur that lines her cloak, tickle the side of her face. When she closes her eyes, the rest of their guests disappear. Lisa’s hands press into her sides, before skimming up her back and mapping out areas of her flesh that only Lisa knows. 

“Do you remember this?” Lisa whispers suddenly. Her lips brush the shell of her ear, sending goosebumps down Jennie’s spine as she tightens her arms around the other woman’s neck. 

“Remember what?” she murmurs back. 

She can almost feel Lisa’s eyes closing as she kisses her ear, breathing in the scent along her skin and nosing the area that is the most sensitive. 

“Remember when I first held you? When you let me touch you?”

* * *

****

**1447**

“Those are _poisonous!”_

Jennie startles, almost falling backwards in the dirt, at the sound of that voice. She staggers back, colliding with the tree behind her, and tilts her head up to see a girl crouched down on a branch, half of her face covered in dirt and in trousers that are ripped at the side. 

“Those are poisonous!” she says again, pointing down at the plants on the ground. 

When Jennie catches her breath, she watches as the girl frowns, presumably at the _“poisonous”_ leaves on the floor, before she grabs a hold of the branch underneath her and climbs down the tree. 

Her clothes are even more tattered up close; her shirt sleeve torn at the end and her pocket hanging loosely from a single thread in the stitching. Her hair hangs halfway out of the bun, with loose strands curling around the edge of her face. When she looks back at Jennie, she frowns even harder and points one dirty fingernail at her. 

“I know you!” she says and steps closer, twigs and leaves crunching underneath the weight of her leather boots. 

“Aren’t you from Lesyeux? I’ve seen your father in my castle before!”

Jennie blinks, the sunlight streaming in through the branches do little to dull the ache that the other girl’s voice creates. It seems like she only knows how to speak by shouting at someone and if Jennie’s own mother, the Queen, had heard her speak in such boisterous tones, she would send her outside and tell her to sleep with the sheep like an animal. 

“Are you deaf?” the girl asks, tilting her head in confusion when Jennie doesn’t answer her back. “Is that why you can’t speak?”

Jennie tries to gather the words on her tongue, to try to form some sort of coherent sentence so she can prove that she is in fact, _not deaf_ , but when she opens her mouth, nothing comes out. 

“So you are deaf?!” she gasps, her eyes widening in surprise. 

“I’m not deaf!” Jennie frowns, flushing in embarrassment. “I’m not!”

The other girl grins, her mouth stretching into a smile that’s too big for her face. “Oh...okay, cool! What’s your name again? Jennifer? I’m Lisa, I’m twelve years old. How old are you?” she asks, holding out her palm for a shake. 

“It’s just Jennie,” she says and after spending a second too long staring at her hand, Lisa jumps and quickly tries to wipe all the dirt off on her trousers, but if anything, it only makes her hand look even more filthier than it was before. 

“And I-I’m thirteen.”

“You’re a year older than me?” she tilts her head. “You look small to be thirteen!”

Jennie flushes even harder and opens her mouth to defend herself, but she is small. Her cousins have outgrown her and their seamstress has had to tailor more than a few dresses so her feet don’t get caught in the material. 

“Why were you trying to pick poisonous flowers?” Lisa asks, turning on her heels and crouching to the ground. 

“I－I wasn’t…” she mumbles. “I mean..I－I didn’t know.” She bends down beside Lisa, watching as the other girl grabs one of the twigs off the ground and proceeds to poke at the bushel of plants. They’re colorful, blossoming in hues of yellow and orange, almost like the sun and what had drawn Jennie to them in the first place. 

She wanted to pick them for her mother and take them back to the castle so she could put them in a vase by the windowsill like she always does. 

“Whenever a flower has a red bud with black roots like this,” Lisa points out. “It’s poisonous, at least that’s what my Healer taught me. Do you have a Healer in your kingdom?”

“Y-Yes,” Jennie stutters. “Her name is Anne, b-but I haven’t been taught a lot yet. Only a few plants so far.” Jennie doesn’t mention that the reason why she’s so behind is because she spends most of her afternoons in the markets with her friend Jisoo, skimming through garment crates and bringing back linen and silks for their seamstress to sew together. 

They play dress-up for hours, picking through her mother’s jewels and trying on crowns that are too big for their heads and playing pretend. 

“Thank you,” she says suddenly. “Thank you for telling me that.”

“It’s no problem,” Lisa shrugs and stands back up, wiping sweat from her brow. “Do you want to play with me since you’re out here? I don’t have to go back inside until the sun sets.”

And without another word, she takes off, stalking through the grass and barely sparing Jennie a glance as she stumbles to follow after her. The other girl is tall, her strides taking her across the forest floor in increments that Jennie can barely keep up with. 

She almost opens her mouth to tell her to slow down, but Lisa stops abruptly, almost causing Jennie to collide with her back. 

“By the way, do you want to know what I was doing up in that tree?”

Without waiting for an answer, Lisa angles her head up, her eyes following the sway of the tree branches as the wind blows. 

“I was looking for birds,” she whispers. “Red sparrows. My dad says that they’re common during this time, but I couldn’t find one.” 

Lisa stares up at the trees for a long minute, breathing softly and waiting, almost as if she were to stand here long enough a sparrow might actually appear right before her eyes. When nothing happens, she sighs, her face falling with the weight of her shoulders. It’s such an odd expression that Jennie finds herself grasping her hand, her fingers encircling her bony wrist. 

“I－I－I have a b-bird book at home. Do you want to come? W-We could f-find a red sparrow there, probably.”

* * *

****

**1448**

“Don’t you think it’s weird?”

Jennie angles her head upward, staring at Lisa as she holds the tiara above them, the diamonds glittering underneath the candles that light up her bedroom. Jennie’s mother had come to wish them goodnight nearly an hour ago, tucking them both in and kissing their foreheads after they said their prayers. 

Jennie had tried to sleep－ _tried_ －being the keyword because not a minute after her mother had shut the door, Lisa was turning over on her side and shaking Jennie awake. Maybe it was the sweet potato soup that they had for dinner. Lisa had gone back for second helpings, nearly licking her bowl clean and polishing off a roll of bread before dragging Jennie outside for a game of tag.

She had endless energy, seeping through her bones and permeating everything she touched and everything she did. 

Even now, after climbing out of the bed and digging through Jennie’s chest of head ornaments, Lisa still didn’t look tired. 

“Do I think what’s weird?” Jennie turned over, tucking her hand underneath her pillow as she yawned. 

“This whole thing,” Lisa said and then frowned, showing Jennie her tiara. “I mean－why do we get to be royalty, you know? Why do we have to take the throne and rule over our own people?”

And Jennie thinks that’s a silly question if she’s ever heard one. Their lives were the way that they were precisely because of who they are. When she was younger, small enough to fit on her mother’s lap and naive enough to ask her so many questions, the Queen explained to her that their lives were this way because God made it so.

 _He made your father a king_ , she would whisper. _He gave him strength to be a warrior and the knowledge to know right from wrong and how to help people. He knew how to be strong because God taught him. From when he, and I, and everyone else was a child, she would say. God taught us all. Some of us were born to be kings and queens and knights. Then there are others that are meant to be peasants－meant to kneel before us and show us respect._

“I just...I just think maybe...that it might be the way that things are supposed to be,” she says quietly. 

Lisa shrugs, staring at the tiara for a minute longer before she sighs and leans over to place it on the small wooden desk. 

“I guess.” 

She blows out one of the candles at their bedside, bathing the room in soft shades of yellow that cast shadows along the walls. Lisa shuffles closer to her side, their knees knocking together underneath the sheets and her breath fanning across Jennie’s nose, tickling the small hairs on her skin. 

“Do you not want to be a Queen some day?” she whispers. 

Lisa blinks slowly at her, almost as if she needs to process the question before giving her an answer. And that’s odd because Lisa always knows what to say. She’s always thinking of the right words, always knows the exact phrases she wants to use, and is hardly ever speechless. 

“It’s...it’s not that,” she frowns. “I mean...it’s not that I _don’t_ want to be Queen. I know that I will－that I’ll _have_ to－because it’s my duty, it just seems…”

“Boring?” Jennie supplies. “Useless?”

Lisa snorts, rolling her eyes at the other girl, and shaking her head as best as she can. “No. Not exactly at least. It just...it just...I don’t know. It just feels like...my entire life will end.”

They lay together in silence, staring back at one another until Jennie realizes that their breaths have synchronized themselves with each other. When she stares at her torso, she can see the way that Lisa’s chest rises and falls in tune with her own, the necklace with her kingdom’s insignia, splayed over the length of her collarbone and the chain digging into her skin. 

“Why would your life end?” Jennie murmurs. It’s an odd thing for her to hear. Considering, her mother had spent Jennie’s entire life training her to become Queen, teaching her languages, having her read war books, practicing her etiquette from the time that she could walk, and meeting with leaders from foreign states. 

Her mother once told her that being Queen was the greatest gift that any woman could ever receive, that this gift was almost as special as having a child. A Queen meant that you cared for someone other than yourself. A Queen looked after her people and looked after her castle. In their world, a Queen was what every woman aspired to be, whether through birthright or not. 

“I just don’t want people choosing things for me,” Lisa frowns. 

“Who chooses for a Queen?”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Lisa snorts, poking a spot on her cheek. “Everyone makes decisions for you. You just go along with it.” 

“I think…” Jennie whispers, licking her lips. “That your view is a slightly pessimistic way of looking at things.”

“Oh, really?” Lisa raises her eyebrow. “My mother didn’t choose my father, he chose her. When they were getting married, my grandmother picked out her dress, she arranged the entire ceremony. They went to see healers, psychics, and witch doctors all around the country to make sure that my mother had a girl－that she had me. No one ever gets a say in this world.” 

But Jennie doesn’t believe her and she says just as much, murmuring it underneath her breath, but because they’re lying so close to one another, Lisa picks up on it. 

“What did you say?”

She tries to hide her yawn, but Jennie can see the way her eyes droop, struggling to stay awake as the last of the candle melts down into the cylindrical tray. The scent of it, jasmine mixed with vanilla, makes Lisa burrow into her pillow, clutching the space on the mattress between both of their bodies. 

“I said,” Jennie whispers. “That I don’t think that’s true.”

“Oh yeah? Why not?”

And Jennie shuffles closer, her hand finding Lisa’s underneath the blanket, feeling the muscle in her hand contract when their fingers find one another. Her skin is cold, still damp from their bath, and it makes Jennie squeeze her hand, hoping to transfer some of the heat that makes her body run warm. 

“Because you chose me,” Jennie breathes. “That day in the forest, when you saw me nearly pick those poisonous flowers, you chose me. You chose me as your friend. No one made you do that.”

* * *

****

**1449**

Jennie had never seen this many people in the castle, let alone in the courtyard of Elyrinth. Members of the Court and Royal Officials were milling about, standing off to the side and talking amongst each other while commoners, peasants, and artisans stood off to the side, watching with rapt attention. 

Jennie had taken a horse and rode off to Elyrinth as soon as word had traveled around the isle that there was to be an execution performed in the courtyard of Elyrinth at noon. Usually, matters involving the castle or disobedience among the ranks were dealt with behind the walls of their fortress, but an execution was different. 

The last one had been performed only a week ago, some commoner who had been caught stealing bread from the kitchen and had both his hands chopped off in front of the town for the whole public to see. 

Two days later, he died from an infection in his wounds. 

Jennie dismounts from her horse when she makes it to the edge of the courtyard, pushing her hood off of her head and grabbing reins of her saddle to lead her horse to the side of the crowd. She has to push past a few commoners, murmuring excuses and pausing to say pleasantries, before she’s finally able to get a glimpse at the courtyard. 

There are two thrones set off to the side, one for the King and the other for the Queen. Servants stand by the chairs, holding goblets of wine and a tray of cheese, bread, and grapes, presumably to keep them satisfied during the execution. 

“What is this all about?” Jennie asks a short girl standing next to her. 

“Someone tried to sneak into Princess Lisa’s room, I spy, I think,” she shrugged. “Tried to poison her in her sleep. Luckily, the princess woke up just in time and was able to subdue her.”

Jennie felt her stomach drop, her hand loosening around the reins, until she heard the blaring sound of trumpets signal the arrival of their guest. 

“W-What?”

The girl doesn’t hear her, too busy trying to push herself closer to the front of the courtyard. 

“Ladies and gentleman, respected members of the Court and high-ranking officials, your Majesty the Queen and the Honourable King,” the man says loudly, gesturing to the other side of the field. The King of Elyrinth holds his wife’s hand as they walk across the field, waving to the onlookers and bowing their heads to members of the Court, before they take their seats at their thrones. 

“You have all been summoned here today to witness the execution of a traitor, the execution of an enemy who has attempted to bring death and destruction to the Kingdom of Elyrinth－who has attempted to kill Elyrinth’s very own Princess Lisa!”

People erupt with noise. Shouting at the top of their lungs and booing, their voices growing into a loud chorus of raucous outrage at the thought of someone hurting the princess. Jennie’s horse, Belle, grows irritated at the noise, shuffling back and forth on her back legs and even making noises to voice her distress, causing Jennie to pull her away from the crowd while murmuring words of comfort in her ear.

“Let us punish this enemy for their evil and heinous actions to our kingdom! Let us restore order to its rightful place and make clear that no act used to threaten or harm any member of the Royal Family will be taken lightly!”

The crowd bursts into applause, howling with praise and shouting for the enemy to be brought out. The announcer looks over at the King, who simply nods his head and signals for the execution to proceed. 

Two castle servants roll out a makeshift wooden plank, strong enough to withstand the weight of a fully grown man, and narrow enough to fit through the length of the castle doors. An official follows them out, dragging what appears to be the enemy, whose face is covered up with a potato sack and whose body has already been littered with cuts, scraps, and bruises. 

The crowd shouts as the official laid the individual down on the plank, their head towards the ground and their feet suspended at the top of the plank. They don’t even struggle, not with the hands that yank them into place and force the leather straps tight around their legs, torso, and arms. 

When the sack is yanked off the person’s head, the crowd begins to yell and scream, flinging obscenities and cursing the individual to Hell. Jennie rubs her eyes and draws closer as she makes out the face of a woman, someone she doesn’t recognize, but still a woman who can’t possibly be any younger than herself. 

The castle doors open again, but this time Lisa walks out to a chorus of cheers and hollering. Her hair is pulled back from her face and she’s in war garb: a metal shield to cover her chest, leather skins, dark boots, and her sword tucked into her left side so the insignia of Elyrinth gleams against the sunlight. 

Her eyes sweep along the crowd, looking at her people, and Jennie thinks that the younger girl might just see her. Her gaze falters, roaming over Belle who’s much calmer at her side now. 

Jennie wants to call her name, wants to grab her attention, but Lisa looks away just as quickly, facing her parents as she draws her sword out. 

“The punishment that will be bestowed upon this criminal shall be a manner of the Princess’s choosing. Daughter of Elyrinth, what do you choose?” the King asks her. 

Lisa doesn’t say anything for a second, but after pausing to take a deep breath, she looks up at her father and tells him, “I wish to behead this criminal.”

The King smiles widely at his daughter, nodding his head and waving his hand for her to do as she wishes. When Lisa turns back to the crowd, they also voice their approval, throwing their hands up and watching as Lisa stalks over to the woman. 

“Let this be the last time,” she says, her voice clear and firm enough for the entire crowd to hear. “Never attempt to threaten the Princess of Elyrinth or the King and Queen of this Kingdom. You shall find your very death at the blade of this sword or through whatever device that my Father deems fit!”

And in a single motion, Lisa lifts her sword over her head, but the angle is all wrong and Jennie knows this because Lisa had taught her how to wield a sword. She taught her the correct way to grip the hilt and how hard to swing in order to cause the most damage. So when Lisa brings the sword down on the woman’s neck, the culprit lets out a shrill scream, enough to make the crows flock away, when the blade only severs a part of her neck. 

Lisa aimed her sword that way intentionally. She wanted to behead the woman slowly, all by herself. 

Blood splatters out, catching onto Lisa’s face and streaking across the front of her nose, before she pulls back and swings her sword down again. With each strike, the woman’s screams grow louder, piercing Jennie’s ears and then gradually tapering off to a gurgle. 

With a final blow, Lisa yells, the blade hacking off the end of the woman’s head until it detaches and rolls off into the grass. The crowd bursts into applause, throwing their hands up and screaming at the top of their lungs, when Lisa turns back to face them. 

Her face is completely covered in blood and she looks out of breath, her chest heaving to gather enough air. She scans the crowd again and Jennie feels herself tremble when Lisa’s gaze connects with her own. She stares at her for a long moment, ignoring the servants as they come to take the decapitated body away and the Royal Officials that have started to leave the courtyard. 

Jennie wants to run across the field, she wants to gather her in her arms and wash her face with water from the river, but she doesn’t move. She just stands still, her feet rooted in the dirt as Lisa finally gathers her thoughts and sheaths her sword back into her side. 

She wipes her face with her forearm, but it only smears the blood even more across her face, gathering it underneath her eyes.

 _Follow me,_ Lisa mouths and before Jennie can blink, Lisa whirls around on her heels and walks off to the opposite side of the castle. 

Jennie doesn’t hesitate. She simply gathers the reins in her hands and walks Belle down the same way that Lisa went.

* * *

****

**1450**

“Have you ever kissed someone?”

Jennie looks up from her spot on the floor, her back pressed up against the shelf of books. The library is one of the largest rooms in the castle, with stacks and shelves of novels on astronomy, mathematics, poetry, literature, and herbal medicine. Lisa runs her hand along the smooth mahogany and well-polished wood, craning her neck away from a volume of science, when she looks down at Jennie. 

“What did you ask me?”

The older girl licks her lips and sits up some, drawing her knees to her chest. “Have you ever kissed someone?”

“Why do you ask?” 

“I’m just curious,” she shrugs. 

Lisa steps away from the shelf, turning towards the leather armchair next to the window and walks over to take a seat. The material squeaks underneath her dress, but she simply crosses her ankles and looks back at Jennie. 

“I kissed a girl at a tavern once,” she says. “It was alright...nothing special to me.”

And suddenly Jennie remembers that night. She remembers following Lisa out on horseback when she came to visit her in Lesyeux. The way Lisa had scaled the side of the castle walls like an enemy and knocked at Jennie’s balcony window, nearly hanging off of the ledge and begging her to join her for a night of fun. 

She had changed out of her nightgown and followed after the younger girl, her skin cool from the night air and her hair still damp and rustled from her bath. 

The markets were still teeming with life at that time, commoners laughing loudly on the road and falling over in a pile of their own vomit. The music had been heard from the dirt road beyond the castle grounds, and Lisa knew all the places to visit in Lesyeux. 

They had dismounted their horses and walked through the town, seeing a fortune teller read from cards and muttering phrases in the native tongue of Lesyeux while scattering a mix of herbs and ashes. Villagers were yanking on each other, drunkenly yelling curse words and spilling food that was in their hands. 

The tavern that they found was small and packed with other villagers and commoners from around the kingdom and neighboring towns. Although they had stuck together for the better part of the night, Jennie had lost Lisa in the throng of people and didn’t find her again until she saw her back pressed up against the wall and her tongue down some blonde girl’s throat. It made her visibly nauseous, enough so that she left that same night, riding back to the castle alone. 

“Do you remember that?” Lisa asks, suddenly breaking the older girl out of her thoughts.

Jennie wants to tell her no, but she can’t. She remembers everything about that night. She remembers dismounting from her horse once she made it back home and vomiting beside her shoes on the grass. She remembers ripping her clothes off and angrily burning them in the bath. She remembers crying in her bed for the entire night. She remembers not speaking to Lisa for three days. 

She remembers everything. 

“Yeah,” Jennie says slowly. “Yeah...I think I do.”

“Have you?” Lisa swallows and then readjusts. “Have you...you know, ever kissed anyone?”

“No,” Jennie shakes her head. She hasn’t and blood gathers underneath her cheeks in embarrassment in part from her inexperience and in part because Lisa is younger than her, but she’s already done more than Jennie. 

“It’s not that big of a deal, honestly,” Lisa shrugs, probably to quell her anxiety. “Most people don’t even know how to kiss, so it ends up being bad anyways.”

That startles a laugh out of Jennie, a hand coming up to cover her mouth as Lisa grins at her. 

“I’m serious!”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Jennie giggles and pushes her legs out again. 

She opens the book on her lap, a thick volume of plays that her mother had gifted her on her sixteenth birthday last month. The pages are worn, but her fingers glide over the words, the felt pen used creating a penmanship that Jennie had failed to imitate. 

Lisa moves from the chair, walking back over to Jennie and sliding down so their knees are pressed up against each other. 

“Does it bother you?”

“It doesn’t _bother_ me,” she sighs. 

Lisa tugs the book out of her lap, turning one of the pages over and attempts to read aloud one of the sentences, but she can’t understand German. It makes Jennie smile, watching her frown down at the book, before she slams it close in frustration and pushes it off her lap. 

“Be honest with me. Does it bother you?”

“Not...not exactly.” 

“What does that even mean?”

_It means that it bothers me that you let someone else kiss you. It bothers me that you let someone else find out what you taste like. It bothers me that you didn’t come after me that night. It bothers me that you have yet to kiss me, yourself._

“I don’t know…” Jennie shrugs. She grips a hold of her shirt, the button coming undone at the top and exposing her necklace to the sun that manages to peek through the curtains. 

“I just－I...you taught me a lot of things,” she looks over at Lisa. “Why did you never teach me how to kiss? Why did you never practice with me?”

Lisa exhales quietly, her breath fanning across Jennie’s face as she studies her. The silence stretches between them like the clouds in the sky, soft and motionless, tethered by nothing but gravity. It makes Jennie hold her own breath. 

“You never asked me,” Lisa murmurs. “I needed you to ask me. I couldn’t just assume.” 

And Jennie flushes then, her hands balling up the material of her skirt as she lets out her breath. She feels lightheaded and when she doesn’t say anything, Lisa lays her hand on top of her fist, smoothing over her fingers until Jennie lets go of her skirt. The younger girl grabs a hold of her hand and extends her fingers, playing with her thumb and pulling on Jennie's pinky like she would when they were little. 

“I’m－” Jennie starts, licking her lips. “I’m...asking you now, Lisa. I’m asking you now to show me.”

When she looks up at her, Lisa takes a deep breath and turns so that she can fully face her. Her eyes watch Jennie’s face and when the older girl uses her fingers to brush her bangs out of her eyes, Lisa grabs her wrist and presses a short peck to her pulse. 

It makes the blood underneath Jennie’s skin thrum. It makes her inside prickle with heat and she pulls her hand away, tugging Lisa forward by her shirt until she gets the point. 

Their lips meet and it's uncoordinated and initially, it hurts. Lisa’s lips are smooth, but Jennie lacks technique and she’s too eager, too anxious to know what it feels like. But Lisa calms her down. She rubs a hand down the length of her back and pushes her nearly in her lap, Jennie crawling forward until she can rest her knees on the outside of Lisa’s thighs. 

Their lips slot together messily, saliva leaking out the corners of their lips, but Jennie doesn’t care. Lisa makes a sound in the back of her throat, groaning against the pressure that Jennie applies to her mouth. It starts to feel good; when Lisa nibbles on her bottom lip and then pulls back, gently studying the pout of Jennie’s mouth, before she leans forward again. 

They take their time with Lisa guiding them. Her tongue eases past the opening of her mouth and then she licks her way inside. She tastes Jennie like she’s cleaving the inside of an orange, suckling at her tongue and moaning when Jennie bites her back. 

It feels like nothing Jennie has the words to describe. When she angles her head to the side, their teeth knock into each other and she breathes out a simple, _‘sorry,’_ but all Lisa does is laugh and kiss her back. 

Her fingers dig around, pulling at Jennie’s shirt until she’s able to slide them underneath and feel the skin of her back. It makes Jennie moan into her mouth and suddenly everything feels like it’s been intensified. It suddenly feels like she can’t get close enough to the other girl, like she hasn’t kissed her hard enough to know if she's good enough at this. 

But Lisa never falters. She pulls back and stares at Jennie’s mouth, both of their lips swollen and covered in spit and she can’t help but duck back down to kiss the corner of Lisa's mouth. 

“You taste…” Lisa breathes, her eyes raking over Jennie’s mouth. “You taste...you taste like apples,” she grins. “Like apples and summer. I feel like there’s summer inside of you.”

* * *

****

**1451**

Jennie unbuttons her blouse, her fingers moving slowly to open her linen shirt and tug it from the confines of her skirt. She removes her corset, loosening the lace to pull it free and set it down on the grass next to her shirt. When she pushes her skirt down, she hears the rustle of tree branches behind her and the sounds of a bird’s wings as they fly away. 

She hurries then, pushing the rest of her clothing off before she walks forward and slips down into the water. 

The lagoon is shallow enough that her feet can still skim the top of the floor, feeling rocks and sand and algae between her toes. But the water is warm enough from the rays of the sun that manage to seep through the tops of the trees. 

Jennie swims forward, submerging herself underneath and opening her eyes to see the different plants at the bottom, the particles of dirt that float on the surface, and glittering stones that have been shaped by stone. 

When she comes back up for air, she pushes her hair back and looks over her shoulder as Lisa emerges from the foliage. She’s wearing shorts that stop just below her knees and a thin red blouse that billows out from the breeze. She takes one look at Jennie and her face breaks into a small smile. 

It’s enough to make Jennie’s toes curl in the water. 

The younger girl wastes no time kicking off her boots and shedding her own clothes, leaving them in a pile next to Jennie’s own clothing. When she slides into the water, she ducks her head almost immediately before coming back up and throwing her head back. 

Her hair flings water everywhere, but Lisa is laughing and her smile is so bright that Jennie can’t help but swim closer to her. 

When she’s within arms reach, Lisa swims backward, kicking water out as she extends her arms and swims away. It makes Jennie pout and she splashes her, just managing to get some of it in her eye and causing both of them to laugh. 

Jennie swims after her, getting close enough to hop onto her back and their skin sticks together, bare and slick from the water, as Lisa grabs a hold of her underneath her knees. The younger girl walks ahead, ducking underneath the vegetation that hangs above the lagoon and comes to a stop at a tiny crest that allows the water to gather in a small cave. 

Lisa lets her go and swims forward, her back glimmering above the water as Jennie follows after her. 

When they manage to reach the side of the cave, the walls extend, becoming high enough so they no longer have to duck their heads, but still enclosed for one of them to reach up and touch the ceiling of the cave with their hands. 

And the cave itself is dazzling. Cones of glistening crystals drip from above and some of the sunlight that manages to peek its way through, glints off the rock wall. The water is much colder here, drawing goosebumps along the surface of their skin as they wade through the shallow water. Without much of the sunlight visible in the cave, the water reflects off the gleaming rocks, lapping softly at the walls. 

Lisa is still gazing up at the ceiling when Jennie swims over to her side. Gently, she reaches for the younger girl, taking her hand and watching as she presses it into her cheek.

Lisa blinks down at her, swimming closer until their noses brush together and she can whisper a small, _‘hey.’_

“Pay attention to me,” Jennie breathes and it’s not a whimper, but with the slight pout of her lips, it might as well be. 

“I always pay attention to you,” Lisa chuckles, brushing her lips gently across her own. “Even when you’re not around me, I can’t get you out of my mind.”

Lisa strokes the skin underneath her eye, moving her hand down the side of her face to press her fingers against her mouth. And without saying anything, Jennie parts her lips, letting Lisa push her fingers into her mouth. Her skin tastes like salt and sweat, a combination that has her licking at the pad of Lisa's fingers as they rest on her tongue. The younger girl exhales noisily, pushing her fingers further into her mouth, before Jennie grabs her wrist, not stopping her but warning her. 

When she pulls her fingers away, a line of spit connects to her lips and Lisa leans forward, kissing it away. 

It makes Jennie’s skin buzz with sensation and when she leans forward to kiss Lisa back, the younger girl slides her hand down until she’s able to cup her breast underneath the water. Jennie trembles, gripping the back of her neck and sighing against her open mouth. 

“Tell me,” Lisa says, her eyes lidded as she stares down at her. “Tell me what it feels like.”

Jennie breathes out harshly against her cheek, tightening her grip on the younger girl when she squeezes the flesh and rolls her nipple between her fingers. And Jennie is so sensitive to her touch－crying out and making small noises in the back of her throat. When Lisa bends her head down, she does so to suckle at her breast, almost like an infant would, and it sends heat down the base of her spine and forces her to squeeze her eyes shut. 

“Tell me,” Lisa murmurs again, tugging at her nipple with her teeth. It causes Jennie to yelp, grabbing a fistful of her hair and yanking her upwards so she can kiss her. 

They mouth at whatever skin they can reach; Lisa kissing up her neck and the side of her face, while Jennie sucks on the skin behind her ear and groans when Lisa’s hands travel up her sides. There’s no coordination, no rules, it’s just two girls doing what _feels_ right－what feels natural to them. 

“It feels…” Jennie hiccups, her tongue growing heavy in her mouth as Lisa alternates between her breasts. “It feels...feels so－so good.”

Jennie’s never been with anyone else－ has never allowed any man or woman to touch her like Lisa has and she suspects that this is driven by her need to feel every sensation with the younger girl. That this thing between them, this silent agreement to commit themselves to each other, is what makes this experience all the more satisfying for the both of them. 

When Lisa slides her leg in between Jennie’s own, lifting her up until her clit settles just right on her thigh, she can’t help the sharp gasp that falls out of her mouth. 

Jennie bites down on Lisa’s lip _hard_ , enough to draw blood and suckle at the mark that she’s left, gathering all her pain and swallowing it down whole. And Lisa’s hands－like they always do－find purchase on her waist, angling her forward and pushing her back so Jennie can grind on her thigh. 

The sensation is dizzying, building up to a feeling inside of her that ebbs and flows like the force of a wave. It makes her claw at Lisa’s back. It makes her buck against her leg and shift her hips just right so she can feel herself shake with sensitivity. And when Lisa licks inside her mouth, tasting every inch of her and pressing their chests together, Jennie swallows down the shout that she wants to let out. 

And briefly, Jennie’s mind floats back to that summer that she first met Lisa in the woods, when she was a small, thirteen-year-old girl, and Lisa had stopped her from picking poisonous flowers. She looked at that twelve-year-old’s dirty fingernails and was repulsed at the image of a royal member that could be so unkept. She didn’t want Lisa to touch her then－ she didn’t even know how to be around her. 

But now, as they stand submerged in the lagoon and clinging to one another, Jennie has never wanted anyone else’s hands on her that aren’t Lisa’s. She thinks of how the younger girl’s fingertips have stroked the skin of her back, how they’ve untangled knots from her hair, and helped her apply makeup for balls and festivals that neither of them wanted to attend. 

From the moment they met, it’s always been Lisa's touch that’s guided her－ that has shown Jennie what to do. 

And when Lisa pulls back, staring up at the older girl, Jennie takes her face in her hands and kisses her soft and slow and gentle. 

“I want you,” Lisa breathes open-mouthed against her lips. 

And Jennie doesn’t quite understand that phrase because Lisa has had her ever since they were children. 

“You already have me,” Jennie whispers. She drags her lips across Lisa’s cheek, feeling the younger girl smile against her skin before she grabs a hold of her waist. 

“I mean－” she starts. “I mean...I want to have you...next year. I want to have you next year as my Queen. When I turn eighteen, I want you.”

The breath that stutters out of Jennie’s lungs is loud enough to rattle the cave. It makes her pull back in shock, staring at Lisa in bewilderment just as she leans forward to kiss her forehead. Her lips smack against her skin and when she makes eye-contact with Lisa, the younger girl looks nervous. 

“What…” Jennie breathes out. “Wh－Why would you want me as your Queen?”

And Lisa strokes her hair, kissing away droplets of water that cling to her eyelashes. Her expression is so fond that it makes Jennie’s heart ache. It pushes at that spot just underneath her ribcage that yearns for more－that yearns for every part of herself to belong to Lisa. 

“Why would I not choose you as my Queen?” Lisa asks, licking her lips. “You are my best friend. I trust you, I miss being with you whenever we are apart. Just the thought of you…” she shakes her head, looking somewhere behind Jennie’s shoulder. 

“Just...you, it’s always been you. It’s always been the way you looked at me. It’s always been the way you followed me like a cat, like someone who wanted to be around me. I love listening to your voice when you read. I love the way that you sound when I make you angry and how your nostrils flare slightly when you laugh really hard.”

She takes a deep breath and Jennie can feel her heart stuttering against Lisa’s own. She can feel the way that the younger girl trembles in her arms－maybe at the very thought that Jennie would reject her. 

“I just－I just want to be with you.”

Jennie rubs her thumb over her eye, collecting the water that’s gathered there so she can see Lisa more clearly. Her eyes are so wide, so warm and expressive. If you ever wanted to know what was on Lisa’s mind, all you would need to do was stare into her eyes. They’re beautiful and they’re warm and they’re the same eyes that Jennie had longed to be stared at by for years. 

“That night...that night that I slept over in your kingdom,” Lisa says. “I told you that Queens don’t get to choose...that they don’t get to make decisions for themselves.”

“But I was wrong,” she frowns, shaking her head. “I was wrong and I was wrong because right now, I’m choosing you. I want you, Princess Jennie Kim of Lesyeux to be my Queen.”

* * *

****

**1453－Present Day**

“I remember when you were looking for sparrows.” 

And Lisa laughs in her ear, tightening her hold around her wife’s waist. Their guests have joined them on the floor, dancing in circles and twirling with their partners to the sound of the music and the murmur of conversation. 

Jennie moves her arms to curl them around Lisa’s back, feeling the hum of her heart against her chest and the crest of Elyrinth press into her fingertips on the back of her cloak. As Lisa spins them a second time, she dips Jennie at her waist, before lifting her up and pressing a short kiss to her cheek. 

“You almost poisoned yourself from those flowers. Imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t seen you from that tree?”

And Jennie’s never thought about that. From the moment they were little girls, they’ve been inexplicably a part of each other’s lives. Jennie doesn’t－has never－entertained the thought of _‘what ifs’_ because it seemed silly, something almost unimaginable when her entire life has been occupied by Lisa. 

If she had never shouted from the tree tops, maybe Jennie would have picked those flowers. Maybe she would have lifted them to her nose to smell their scent and stuffed them in the pocket of her trousers to show her mother. 

Maybe she would have died on that forest floor－alone and sticky from the summer heat－surrounded by the birds and the insects that hid beneath the soil. 

If she had never met Lisa, Jennie knows without a doubt in her mind that she would have died. 

“But you did...” Jennie whispers, nosing the side of Lisa’s face. “You’ve always seen me,” she licks her lips. “You’ve always looked out for me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing this soooo much. i think i might need to revisit this universe some day....
> 
> but i hope you enjoyed this fic!
> 
> stream #HowYouLikeThat


	4. You're lonely and I'm lonely too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a convenient solution for the both of them. Jennie would move out, somewhere close to the Village, where she could be close enough to her shop, and still walk Nicholas to school in the mornings. This arrangement was supposed to be their way of handling it like adults. It just doesn't take away from the fact that it fucking sucks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pairing: jennie/jisoo
> 
> tags: single parents!jensoo, drama, slice of life, discussions of mental illness, getting back together, longing
> 
> request for: maddie

**Friday**

Jennie hated cooking. 

Maybe if she was good at it she might’ve liked to cook more. But as she was scrapping the remains of what was supposed to be an over-easy egg in the trash, it just seemed kind of pointless. 

At least in college, she could get by on microwaveable ramen and the food served at the dining hall because it was decent. But as she got older, it became harder because realistically, she couldn’t spend her paycheck ordering out every weekend. And groceries were cheaper, but cooking was such a goddamn chore that it was just always easier to opt for take-out. 

But with a kid, she couldn’t even rely on that everyday anymore. 

For one, Nicholas had allergies; two, Jisoo made it clear that she couldn’t eat Chinese food every Friday because it wasn’t “healthy”; and three, take-out was expensive, so again, back to Jennie needing to be mindful of her paycheck.

Currently, there are over fifteen different restaurant menus tacked to the door of her fridge and normally, she’d just resort to that, or even run down the street to pick something up from her favorite café with the large glass windows and the orange tabby cat that likes to rub itself up against her leg at the checkout counter. 

But it’s 7:15 a.m. and if she doesn’t get Nicholas dressed, ready for school, and out of the apartment in the next forty minutes then Jisoo is probably going to cuss her out over the phone again and then take away her weekend visitations. 

So, after picking through her fridge, throwing out a spoiled bottle of mayonnaise, and checking the carton of milk in the back to make sure it’s still fresh, Jennie grabs down the box of Fruit Loops from the cabinet. 

“Nicky!” Jennie calls over her shoulder. “Are you up?”

She grabs one of the bowls out of the drying rack and pours some cereal inside before adding the last of the milk and tossing it in the trash can. There aren’t any clean spoons considering there’s still a stack of dishes from last night waiting for her in the sink, so she just grabs one of the large wooden spoons from the drawer and picks the bowl up to set it on the table. 

“Nick!”

She pushes the door open with her elbow and sighs as she spots the small body hidden underneath the blankets. Half of her arm hangs over the side of the bed and her hair is splayed over her Pokemon pillow, some of it peeking out from under the blankets. 

“Babe, hey come on. You gotta wake up,” Jennie says softly, crossing the room to pull the curtains open. Sunlight spills across the floor and just behind her, Jennie can hear Nicholas groan and struggle to pull the sheet over her face. 

“Do I _have_ to go to school?” she groans. 

“Yeah, you have to,” Jennie snorts. “Sorry kiddo. But today’s Friday, hm? Why don’t we do something fun after you get back from school?”

She walks over to the tiny closet and pulls down her uniform and the patterned socks that Jisoo had given NIcholas, which were brand new. They were even wrapped in paper when Nicholas had pulled them from her bag and Jennie had to bite back a smile because Jisoo could be so anal when it came to neat clothing. 

“Can we get pizza and go feed the ducks at the pond?”

Nicky moves sluggishly out of the bed, throwing her feet over the side and rubbing her eyes until Jennie comes over and gently pulls them down. She runs her fingers through her hair, untangling knots and bends at the waist to press a kiss to her forehead. 

“Yeah we can. I’ll even buy you two slices if you behave at school.”

Nicholas smiles, a mouthful of baby teeth that are white with some having fallen out over the past year. She has a handful of dollar bills that she carries around in her Nintendo case just to show off to anyone that wants to see. 

“Okay!” she says, considerably more alert, and pushes the rest of the sheets off to get dressed. 

Jennie helps her into her stockings and then her skirt, before buttoning up her shirt and pushing her arms through the maroon colored blazer. She reaches over the nightstand to grab her tablet off the ledge and pulls the charger out before handing it to Nicholas. 

“Go brush your teeth and _hurry_. Breakfast is on the table.” 

“Did you buy pancakes?” Nicholas asks, already swiping through the screen to look for her favorite video on Youtube. 

Jennie scoffs as she stands back up and follows her daughter out of the room. “No, I didn’t have time and you’d be running to school with the plate anyway. Probably throw up all over the sidewalk.” 

Nicholas giggles as she flips the bathroom switch on and sets her tablet next to the wall, with Jennie helping her up the stool and handing her the toothpaste. 

“Hurry,” Jennie says one more time before she walks back into the living room and grabs her daughter’s backpack from the couch, stuffing her binders inside and her box of colored pencils that she always leaves on the floor. 

A few minutes later, Nicholas walks up to the table and after showing Jennie her teeth, climbs onto the chair and takes one look at her cereal and laughs. 

“Hey!”

“This spoon is too big, mama,” she giggles and lifts it out of the bowl to show her. 

“I didn’t have time to do the dishes. You bored me to death with that Spongebob movie last night.”

“But I love Spongebob, that’s my favorite movie!” she props her tablet up next to the bottle of ketchup and starts eating, milk dribbling down her chin as she hums along to the theme song of _Hey Arnold_.

At the table, Jennie does her hair, brushing it into two separate pigtails and using her favorite yellow sunflower clips to pin her bangs out of the way. She’s done them so many times that it’s almost muscle memory at this point and when she’s done, she turns Nicholas’s face towards her and smiles at the little girl. 

“You’re so pretty,” she chuckles and squeezes her cheeks together as Nicky shrieks and tries to squirm away. 

Nicholas eats quickly, but not fast enough that she’ll get a tummy ache. And when she slurps the last of her milk out of the bowl and her spoon clatters noisily to the table, Jennie is already lifting her off the chair and pulling her arms through the straps of her book bag. 

She takes a quick glance at the clock, seeing the numbers 7:45 glow in red. 

“Alright, alright. We _really_ gotta go now.” 

Nicholas abandons her tablet at the table to go put her sneakers on, while Jennie grabs her keys, her purse, and Nicky’s lunch bag off the counter. After she’s done tying her laces, Nicholas reaches for Jennie’s hand and she does one more quick sweep of the apartment with her eyes to make sure they’re not forgetting anything before she ushers them both out the door.

The walk to the academy isn’t very long, but they have to stop multiple times because Nicholas has a tendency to become easily distracted. The old man, Mr. Hemmis, sits outside his stoop every morning, a newspaper in his lap, and his coffee by his side as he throws seeds to the birds on the sidewalk. Nicholas always waves to him and then runs up the stoop for a handful of seeds to feed the birds before Jennie has to pull her away. 

At the end of the street, Nicholas stops to pet a stray cat that lounges under a bench, the sunlight washing over its fur, and purrs quietly as the little girl runs her small fingers over its belly. 

The bagel shop has a line of customers standing outside, with some on their phones and others talking to the person standing beside them. The open door allows the smell of smoked salmon, fresh chives, fried eggs, and peppers to waft out into the street. Nicholas strains her neck to peek inside, fascinated by the clamoring of pots and pans, the flurry in which the kitchen staff moves, and the upbeat pop music that plays from the radio in the window. 

At the stop light, Nicky watches a woman in colorful clothing and a baseball cap turned backwards on her head, play the accordion next to an open suitcase. A few people toss coins and crumpled bills into the case and Nicholas watches her with wide eyes, her finger picking at her lip, until she digs around in her bag to pull out her Nintendo case and runs over to throw a dollar bill inside too. 

“I thought you wanted to save that money for a new video game,” Jennie hums. 

The light changes color, allowing pedestrians to cross the street, and Nicky quickly zips her case close before shoving it back in her backpack. When she takes Jennie’s hand, she looks up at her and shrugs. “It’s okay. If I lose some more teeth, the tooth fairy will bring me more money,” she smiles.

At the entrance to the building, Jennie waves once more at Nicholas, smiling at the little girl as she carefully makes her way up the steps and then looks over her shoulder to smile at her mom.

 _Have a good day_ , Jennie mouths.

* * *

Frankel’s Delicatessen, a small Jewish deli, tucked on the corner of Manhattan Ave. has the best pastrami, egg and cheese sandwich in the borough. It’s why the woman at the counter smiles at Jennie when she hears the bell go off above the door when she walks in. It’s also why she doesn’t even have to read off her order before she’s already being rung up and given a receipt. The deli is small with only a handful of tables next to the windows. A few people mingle on the other side of the restaurant where they sell different types of bagels, spreads, and household items.

Jennie chooses a table next to the potted plants on the floor and pulls her phone out, swiping through a few emails and then pulls up her camera roll to send a picture of Nicky to Jisoo.

**From: Jennie 8:25 a.m.**

Your spawn 

**From: Jisoo 8:28 a.m.**

?? don’t fucking call her that, you piece of shit. It makes her sound like some lab rat from a testing facility 

Jennie snorts and looks up to the man that hands her order, along with a steaming cup of black coffee and a plastic straw.

**From: Jennie 8:33 a.m.**

Lab rat?? Stop watching spiderman. Also, doesn’t her hair look cute? I did it in like...five minutes.

**From: Jisoo 8:35 a.m.**

Stop trying to seek out validation

**From: Jisoo 8:36 a.m.**

But yes...she looks v cute. 

Jennie sets her phone down and unwraps her sandwich from the paper, feeling the heat from the bread underneath her fingers and watching as the cheese drips down the packaging when she rips it apart. 

She takes a bite out of it just as her phone buzzes on the table, feeling how soft the egg is and the saltiness of the pastrami that coats her tongue and mixes in with a blend of the cheese. 

**From: Jisoo 8:40 a.m.**

What are you doing rn? 

**From: Jennie 8:43 a.m.**

Eating...i’m at frank’s. 

Jennie almost types out _‘you want me to get you something?’_ and it would be easy to do that－so simple to remember her order that she had spent years memorizing: a poppy seed bagel with scallion cream cheese and kippered salmon. 

In university, they had spent their mornings trekking through the city sometimes with only a few dollars in their pockets and some money left over from the holidays to eat through the entire menu some days. 

Jisoo was the one that had introduced her to the deli. She was the one that knew which bagel Jennie would like, who would taste test the spreads sometimes twice and then end up choosing both. 

Jennie can still remember when Jisoo had leaned over the small table that they were sitting in, their knees almost pressed together, as she kissed her on the mouth and knocked her cup of coffee over. 

It was lukewarm by that point, but it still bled through her trench coat and even though Jisoo had been embarrassed, flushed down from the tip of her ears to her neck, Jennie had just laughed and dabbed it away with a handful of napkins. 

When she lifts her coffee to her lips now, it leaves a weird taste in her mouth. 

She picks her phone back up and deletes the message.

**From: Jisoo 8:56 a.m.**

Oh. I haven’t been there in forever

* * *

“You’re early.” 

Jennie looks at her watch, noting the time, and snorts as she sets her things down behind the counter. Chaeyoung is pushing a cart of books up the aisle, the front marked with ‘non-fiction’ in green letters and a stack of paperbacks underneath her arm. 

“I was in a rush this morning," she sighs. "Nicky and I almost overslept. We were watching a movie last night and I didn’t hear my alarm go off. Thought I’d just head in since I was already out.”

“How is Nick by the way?” Chaeyoung hums. She stops in front of one of the shelves and begins stacking the books, lining them up in alphabetic order as she goes. 

“She’s good,” Jennie nods. “Lost another tooth like...a few weeks ago. I don’t think she’s gonna have any left when picture day rolls around.”

Chaeyoung snorts and grabs another stack of books off the cart to place on the shelf. “You should bring her over on Sunday. I think Milo misses her, it’s been awhile.”

Milo is Chaeyoung’s chocolate labrador, a female that’s nearly as big as Nicky, but is so energetic and playful that she still feels like a puppy. Sometimes, Nicky can play with her for hours in Chaeyoung’s small garden, chasing her with her wand and laughing at the top of her lungs when she tackles her to the grass. If it’s especially hot out, they’ll lay underneath the sun, Milo lapping at her face until Nicky is laughing so hard that her cheeks turn red. The last time Nicky had seen her, Milo had gotten her shots and was lethargic most of the day, napping behind the couch and nudging her snout against Chaeyoung’s hand until she pet her. 

“She’d like that,” Jennie murmurs. “I’ll bring some food over, yeah?”

Chaeyoung hums her approval and grabs the cart, pushing it forward to head into the next aisle. 

Three Lives & Co. is a quaint little bookshop, situated between a clothing shop and a second-hand thrift store that sells recycled kitchen appliances and furniture. The only thing that makes it stand out on the crowded street are the dark red french doors of the entrance and the occasional sign out front where Jennie writes out _‘buy one paperback get one free’_ or _‘book signing today at noon’_ in chalk. 

Since the shop is still closed, Jennie has time to hang up flyers in the window for new releases. She can organize the table full of science fiction works and swap out the Book of the Month for a new copy. She prepares the complimentary table of bookmarks, tea bags, and pencils at the front register, sorting them into the different baskets. 

A few more workers trickle in at just a quarter till ten while Jennie’s opening up the new box of shipments in the backroom. Irene knocks on the storeroom door, waving her manicured nails at Jennie before she finishes slipping her arms through the uniform vest. 

“Hey, you need some help back here?”

“Uh…” she pauses, looking around. “I’m－I think I’m alright right now. But you could actually put in the new rolls of change in the register. I left them behind the counter.”

“Alright,” she says, standing in the doorway for a few more seconds before Jennie shoos her away. 

“I’m going, I’m going,” Irene laughs. 

By the time the bookstore opens, the tiny shop is packed with customers. Chatter carries softly inside the building, not loud enough that the music playing from the front can’t be heard, but enough for Jennie to still pick up on a few words. Two guys stand off to the side, the shorter man with his arm around the other guy’s waist as he reads the summary on the back of one of the books. A little girl follows her mom around the store, tugging on the ends of her coat every time she picks up a book and reads the inside cover to herself. 

A group of college students loiter next to the biographies, thumbing through presidential memoirs and the Kennedy section, before grabbing Chaeyoung’s attention and asking for her help. 

Jennie spends most of her time in the back, sorting through boxes and working the counter when someone steps away. Occasionally, a customer might walk over and ask for her opinion on a novel or check out their daily recommendations at the front and then Jennie’ll spend nearly thirty minutes gushing about the novel until she grows embarrassed and just stops talking. 

“I kind of just devoured that HBO show Sharp Objects last night and I really liked the dark, grittiness, almost psychosexual undertones to it. I guess...I guess I just want to read books that kind of follow that same theme.”

The woman pushes her thick horn-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose, tucking a lock of hair nervously behind her ear. She can’t be much older than Jennie and the badge clipped to the front of her shirt lets the other girl know that she works at NBC in the IT department. Jennie nods her head as she talks, leading her towards the section marked thriller. 

“I think if you liked Sharp Objects, you should definitely read the rest of Gillian Flynn’s work, which is what we have down here,” Jennie says, crouching down to show her the bottom of the shelf. 

“Also, Fingersmith by Sarah Waters is one of my personal favorites. It’s a very sensual, dark and disturbing piece between two women. I would also check out The Wife Between Us, Before I Go to Sleep and...” Jennie mumbles, running her finger over the spines. “All The Broken People,” she says, plucking the novel down from the top. 

“Um, these are just some of my recommendations. Personally, I’ve read them all and enjoyed each one.” 

Jennie gathers the books and passes them to the woman, watching as she looks through the covers before tucking all four of them underneath her arm. 

“Oh...um, okay,” she chuckles and blushes when Jennie smiles at her. “I think...I have a flight coming up to Vietnam, so I think it would be good to have some things to keep me preoccupied.”

“Oh, that’s great! So did you want to get these then? I could ring you up now if you’re ready?”

She hums, nodding her head quickly and Jennie smiles again, leading the way back towards the register. 

“I uh－” she says softly. “I um...I’ve actually read some of the recommendations that you guys have posted on Instagram. You guys...you guys have really great taste in books.” 

“Oh thanks,” Jennie chuckles. She steps behind the counter and begins to ring up the items, bagging them with care and even tucking in one of the bookmarks from the counter. 

After paying, Jennie hands the bag over and thanks the customer for visiting her store and wishes her a safe trip, before she ducks out of the shop with a small wave.

* * *

“Here, clean your hands first.” 

Jennie hands Nick a wet wipe, watching as she wipes her fingers off carefully and diligently, even cleaning underneath her fingers in a motion that’s similar to Jisoo. When she finishes, she runs over to the trash can and tosses it inside before walking back over to the bench. 

She climbs up next to Jennie and squirms excitedly as her mom smooths a napkin over her lap and hands her a warm slice of Street Front pepperoni pizza. The pie is so long that Nick has to hold it with both of her hands, tilting her head back as the cheese runs down her fingers and into her mouth. 

Jennie snorts and pulls a piece of cheese off, putting it in her own mouth and uncapping the water bottle next to her thigh. 

“What’d you do at school today?”

Nick kicked her legs forward, chewing some of the pizza that was already in her mouth, before glancing over at her mother.

“We made macaroni necklaces! But—but we had to leave them at school so they could dry. I made one for mommy because she likes the color pink. I colored all the shells, do you think she’ll like it, mama?”

“Are you kidding?” Jennie scoffed. “She’ll love it so much that she might even wear it to work.” 

Nicky plucked a piece of pepperoni off her pizza and giggled as she chewed on it. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Jennie smiled, pinching her cheek. “You know mommy loves everything that you make her.”

And it was true. Jennie could remember the countless drawings and finger paintings that Nicholas had brought home from preschool. At the wide-eyed, excited glint that Jisoo would get every time Nicky handed over one of her drawings and whispered, _‘for you, mommy.’_

Their fridge, in addition to the postcards and family photos they had on the door, was also decorated in stick figure drawings, animal masks, and popsicle stick creations that made Nicky smile every time she walked into the kitchen. 

Jennie only wondered what her kitchen looked like now. There were probably so many things tacked onto the front that it was practically falling off. 

Nicky finishes both slices of pizza, even licking her fingers for good measure, as Jennie laughs and wipes her hands off with some of the baby wipes that she still keeps in her bag. Then, she offers her the small plastic bread of bread crumbs and watches as the seven year-old runs over to the pond to feed the ducks.

* * *

**Saturday**

Jennie pours just enough chocolate milk into the cup that it doesn’t spill it over when she slides it across the table. Nicholas looks up from the page that she’s currently coloring, a picture of Spongebob giving Gary a bath, and leans forward to slurp noisily from the rim of the cup. 

When she pulls back, there’s a milk mustache across her upper lip and it makes Jennie laugh, reaching over to grab her face and press quick kisses against her cheeks. 

“Finish it all, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Nicky nods and leans back in her chair, switching out the purple crayon in her hand for a yellow one and shading Gary’s shell in. 

Jennie grabs her phone off the counter and walks down the hall into her bedroom. She switches the light on and sits down on the edge of her bed, going through a few work emails and reading a text message from Chaeyoung asking her what she wants to eat on Sunday.

**From: Jennie 10:35 a.m.**

Make anything, you know we’ll eat whatever you cook

Jennie sees the notification for an incoming FaceTime call just as she’s waiting for Chaeyoung to respond. 

For some reason, she starts fixing her hair again, before she gives up and accepts the call. 

“Hey.”

“Hi﹣” she pauses, licking her bottom lip quickly, before starting again. “Um. hey. How’s it going? How are you?”

She can see Jisoo prop her phone up in what looks like the kitchen. The overhead lights cast shadows across her face, and briefly, she moves out of the frame, and then steps back in with a bowl in her hands. 

“I’m good. How are you?”

“Good,” Jennie says too quickly and then bites down on her tongue when she realizes Jisoo already said that. “I mean﹣” she takes a deep breath and wipes her hand down the front of her sweats. 

“I’m alright. Not much planned for today, so I think we might just hang out around the apartment today.” 

“You don’t have to go into the bookstore?”

“Uh, no, not today. It’s pretty slow and I wanted to spend the day with Nicholas.”

“Where is my baby, anyway?”

“You mean _our_ baby?” Jennie snorts and leans back on one hand on her bed. “She’s in the living room messing around with her coloring book. She’s almost finished with it and I just bought it for her,” she grumbles. 

“You know how much she likes to color,” Jisoo smirks and grabs her phone to show Jennie the front of her fridge. 

It’s just like she expected. In the corner, she can make out an emergency list of contacts that Jisoo always leaves for the babysitter, and the polaroids of Nicky and her grandparents, but there are so many drawings. Some of them are of people and animals, but also ones with so much color and different shapes and an assortment of glitter nearly dripping off the page. 

“It’s cute, right?”

Jisoo’s turned the camera back on herself and all Jennie can do is stare. She stares at the slight uptick of her lip, the way her eyes gleam and wrinkle at the corners when she smiles. She looks at her hair that’s piled on top of her head in a messy bun. 

When Jennie swallows, it sounds like it echoes. 

“Yeah, it is,” she breathes. 

Jisoo grins at her and moves to set her phone back down, stepping back and smoothing down the front of her sleep shirt. She moves through the same motions of preparing her breakfast; uncapping a cup of yogurt and spooning it into the bowl along with a handful of frozen raspberries. 

“You’re not doing anything today, either?”

“Um..” she hums. “I don’t know. I think I might drive over to see my brother and his wife. I bought them a sandwich maker and I think she’s finally using it.” 

“How is your family?”

“Same old, same old,” she shrugs. “My parents are probably going to travel again this summer and Hayul is getting so much bigger. Did you see the picture that I sent you?”

“Yeah,” Jennie smiles. “She’s so chubby, it’s adorable.”

“It reminds me of Nicky,” Jisoo grins. She sprinkles some granola along the top and then shakes out the bottle of honey before drizzling some on the side. 

“Mom wants to see you again. She said you should come around some time.” 

Jennie licks her lips and shuffles closer to the middle of the bed, crossing her legs. “Why?”

“What do you mean, _‘why?’_ ” Jisoo frowns. “Because she cares about you and she wants to know how you’re doing.” 

It feels weird to hear Jisoo say that because the last time Jennie had spoken to Jisoo’s mother was nearly a year and a half ago﹣it was actually a terrible memory that Jennie didn’t like to think about﹣so it threw her off that her mother would want to know how she’s doing.

“You just…” she trails. _You don’t think it’s weird? You don’t think it’s too soon?_

“Whatever you’re thinking,” she says and moves around the counter to grab her bowl. “Just stop.” 

“I can’t stop.” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“You know what I mean,” Jennie sighs. She sits back up, her jaw suddenly feeling tight for some reason and stares at Jisoo as she settles down at her table. 

She props her phone back up, but she doesn’t start eating. She just holds her spoon in her hand, turning it over in between her fingers until she sighs too. 

“I don’t mean to push you, you know that, right?”

And Jennie does. She does know that, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t make her feel uncomfortable. 

“I know you don’t,” she murmurs. 

“Then what’s wrong? Tell me. I want you to talk to me.” 

“You always want me to talk to you,” Jennie rolls her eyes. She sets her phone down and moves to open the door, walking out into the hallway and peeking around the corner to see Nick still coloring at the table. 

When she steps back in the room and picks her phone up, Jisoo is spooning a bit of her food into her mouth. 

“I like when you talk to me,” Jisoo says around a mouthful of yogurt. “I like when you tell me what you’re thinking about.” 

“I just,” she starts, licking her lips. “I mean...you know what happened last time we talked. It was...I don’t even want to say it was bad. It was _more_ than bad. Bad is like sugarcoating it.” 

“I’m not saying that it isn’t. I don’t doubt that it was, but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about you anymore or anything. She asks me all the time how you’re doing and what you’ve been up to. She _cares_. She really does and you should know that.” 

Jennie tongues the inside of her cheek and blinks up at the ceiling. The fan is spinning so slowly that she can barely feel it in her room, but she can hear the wiring of the blades and that same feeling sits on her chest, the one that tells her to put it away, to step back until she’s ready to look inside this mess again. 

“I’m fine, Soo.” 

“Jennie﹣”

“I _am_. Tell her I’m fine, okay? I’m not ready...I’m not ready yet to talk to her﹣I can’t do that right now. But I’m alright. You’ll tell her that won’t you?”

And she knows Jisoo will. She knows that she’ll embellish some of the story﹣that she’ll make up something about Jennie being swamped at the bookstore or her plans to open up a second branch in the Bronx, that’s why she can’t visit. Jisoo was good at that, she was always good at bending the truth to make everyone feel better. 

The older woman sighs and her lips twitch like she wants to say something, but she decides against it and simply nods her head. 

“You would tell me if something wasn’t right, though?” 

“I would,” Jennie whispers. 

“You know that now?”

“I know that now.” 

And then she smiles. It’s close-lipped and it doesn’t really reach her eyes, but Jennie can tell that they’re okay for now. She knows that Jisoo will let her leave this unfinished and whenever either of them are ready, that they’ll pick at it again. 

“Can I see my baby?” she whispers. 

“You’re looking at her,” Jennie murmurs. 

That startles a laugh out of Jisoo, a true genuine laugh, one that she covers with her hand even though Jennie can still see her teeth. It makes her skin prickle with anxiety. 

“Shut the fuck up,” Jisoo says in between giggles. “My _actual_ baby. You know the one that actually likes me.”

 _I like you_ , Jennie wants to say, but she keeps her mouth shut. 

Instead she rises from the bed with a groan, making a show of walking down the hallway and into the living room. Her coloring book has been abandoned at the table, and Nicky’s spread out on the floor, watching the TV upside down as Spongebob plays. 

Jennie moves over to her couch and sits down with a huff, patting her lap. 

“Come here, Nick. Mommy wants to talk to you.”

“Mommy?” she whips her head around so fast that Jennie actually winces. She watches the little girl scramble to her feet and run over to her, nearly elbowing Jennie in the nose to climb into her lap. 

“Hi, mommy!” Nicholas squeals and actually takes the phone out of Jennie’s hand to pull it closer to her face. 

Jennie snorts and pulls it away some so Jisoo can see her clearly. 

“Hi, angel. Are you having fun?” 

“Mm! I’m watching the Spongebob show. Do you remember that show, mommy? And-and-and I almost finished coloring a picture for you. Do you want to see it?”

Before Jisoo can answer her, Nicky is sliding off Jennie’s lap and walking over to the table to show her all the pictures she’s colored. She flips between pages, pointing different things out and talking about why she colored the sky pink instead of blue, and in between her rambling, Jennie can hear Jisoo’s _“wow,”_ and _“so pretty!”_ or _“good job, babe!”_

“Are you eating breakfast?” Nick asks, tilting her head to the side. 

“Yeah,” Jisoo says and Jennie hears something shuffle on screen as Nicky turns around. “Did you already eat?” 

Nicky lifts her shoulders up in a shrug, just as Jennie gestures widely behind the camera to nod her head in a _‘yes’_ motion.

_Please don’t say no. Please don’t say no._

“Um…” Nicky frowns, staring at Jennie over the top of her phone. “Um﹣”

“You didn’t feed her?!”

“We’re going to a café!” Jennie yells, and reaches for her phone as Nicky comes back into the living room. 

“We’re going to that diner...you know, Mom’s Kitchen? She really likes it there and they don’t open until 11!”

“You don’t have any more groceries, do you?” Jisoo narrows her eyes. 

“I’m _going_ , okay? I just haven’t had time. I was so busy after I picked up Nicky for the weekend and it just﹣it slipped my mind. But I’m gonna go tonight, alright?”

“Whatever,” Jisoo rolls her eyes. “Do you even know how to grocery shop? You’re not still buying those boxed ramen for twenty-dollars are you?”

Jennie opts to remain silent, but when Nicky bounces over, squishing her cheek against Jennie’s own, she nods her head quickly. 

“We had ramen last night! It was delicious, mommy! Mama even put eggs inside just like you do.” 

“Nick,” Jennie groans. “Sometimes, it’s okay not to tell mommy everything.”

“Don’t tell her that﹣!”

“Look at the time!” Jennie says suddenly, standing up and jostling her phone. “We’re gonna get dressed and go get some food. Have a good day, Soo.”

“Jennie, don’t fucking hang up on﹣”

Bye!” Jennie ends the call and looks down at Nicholas, who stares wide-eyed at her. 

“Ready to go, angel?”

Nicholas blinks again, her mouth agape as she points at Jennie’s cellphone. “Mommy said a bad word!”

And Jennie wonders if she can remember the swear jar that they used to collect crumpled dollar bills in. Nicky was young, probably four when they started doing it and Jennie was the one that always had a foul mouth, who didn’t know how to bite her tongue and hold it back. She had put most of her money in that jar either from stubbing her toe on the fridge or stepping on a single lego piece on the carpet. Jennie wonders if Jisoo still has it, if she puts money in it on the occasion that she slips up. 

Jennie almost asks Nicky but she decides against it. 

“Yeah, she did,” Jennie laughs and bends down to scoop Nicholas in her arms. “Come on, let’s go get something to eat and you can text mommy all about her bad mouth.”

* * *

Fortunately, Mom’s Kitchen and Bar is hardly packed, which means they manage to find a table near the window and also, Nicky gets to pick a song on the jukebox pushed in the back. She chooses something by Etta James, a song that she says, _‘mommy sings in the house all the time!’_

She climbs back in the metal chair, her feet not even touching the floor as she swings her legs and holds the menu up. She doesn’t really look through it﹣not really at least. Nicky always orders the same thing: chocolate chip waffles with whipped cream and strawberries because the cook always puts a smiley face in chocolate syrup on the plate. 

When Jennie had first moved to New York, Jisoo told her that this was one of the best places to eat in the city. She knew practically everything off the menu, but ordered the same blueberry oatmeal and toast with jam every time they came.

 _Does mommy still take you here, too?_ Jennie wants to ask her. _Does she still stand near the jukebox and tell you what all her favorite songs are? Does she still order the chocolate milkshake with oreos and pretend to hate it?_

Their food comes; Nicky’s waffles and fruit and Jennie’s scrambled eggs and bacon. The heat wafts up to the faces and Jennie waits, watching as Nicky ties a napkin around her neck so she doesn’t ‘mess up her shirt,’ just like Jisoo would have taught her. 

“Do you like it?” she asks the little girl, watching her lean over to lick the whipped cream up with her tongue. Some of the cream smears across her nose and Jennie smiles, pulling her phone out to take a picture of her.

**From: Jennie 11:38 am**

Look at your kid…

She puts her phone away and ignores the vibration that lets her know she has a new message.

They go to the park afterwards. They walk around, and Jennie takes a seat in the grass while Nicky chases after butterflies and does cartwheels until she gets dizzy. Jennie takes her for lunch later on to a small little pizzeria that has an outdoor seating bar. Jennie lifts her up onto the counter and stands between her legs as they fold their slices in half and eat until their fingers are coated in cheese and grease. 

When the sun sets and Nicky’s feet grow tired, Jennie carries her in her arms all the way back to the apartment. By the time they make it home, it’s dark outside and Nick is snoring against her shoulder, her hair matted to her forehead from the sweat and a bit of drool seeping into her sweatshirt. 

She peels off Nick’s clothes, wiping her hands and face, and helps her brush her teeth even though the little girl whines and pushes her hands away until she’s brushed for two minutes. 

“Wanna go to bed, mama,” Nick whimpers, rubbing her eyes with her fists. 

“We are going to bed, come on.” 

And with all the lights off, Jennie pulls back her sheets and helps Nick into bed, handing her Buzz Lightyear and leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead and her ear. 

“Love you,” she murmurs. Her fingers run through her hair, scratching Nicky’s scalp as her eyes grow heavier and heavier. 

Her fingers grab a hold of Buzz, pushing him against her cheek until she finally turns away and nods off.

* * *

**Sunday**

“Milo!” Nicholas squeals. “Mama, look, it’s Milo!” 

After her shoes are taken off and placed on the rack, she rushes forward and is almost bowled over by the chocolate lab. Milo launches herself at the little girl, wiggling frantically while she barks, plants both paws on her shoulders, and laps at her face. 

Nicky’s laughter is so loud that it draws Chaeyoung out from the kitchen, her eyes wide until she sees the both of them, and then she’s smiling too. 

“Yah, Milo, easy girl,” she hums. 

The lab stops licking at Nicky’s face and drops back down on her paws, circling around the little girl as her tails wags quickly from side-to-side. Nicky leans down to kiss her snout and runs forward to hug Chaeyoung around her waist, squeezing her middle. 

“Hi, auntie Chae! What are you cooking?”

“Homemade tomato basil pasta. Sounds good?”

“Yeah!” she says, jumping up and down. “You cook really well! Can I have some chocolate milk?”

“Yeah, sure kid. Come on,” Chaeyoung snorts, leading her into the kitchen. 

While Jennie pulls off her jacket and hangs it up in the closet, she can hear the sound of the fridge door slamming and Milo barking, before she trots out of the kitchen right behind Nick. Both of them climb onto the couch with Nicky reaching for the remote as Milo lays her head on her lap. 

There’s a pot of water boiling on the stove and a pan to the side that’s bubbling with tomato sauce, herbs, and onions. Jennie walks a bit further into the kitchen and reaches down into her bag, pulling out a small chocolate cheesecake with strawberries on the top just like Chaeyoung likes. 

“Do you like it?” Jennie asks, showing her the box. 

“Mm, it looks yummy, thank you!” she grins and leans over to kiss her cheek. Jennie blushes and shoves her playfully, stepping around the other girl to put it in the fridge for later. 

“Come smell this. Doesn’t it smell good?” Chaeyoung asks, waving her over. 

She leans over the stove and inhales the scent of the pasta, her tongue prickling with sensation as she lets out a deep breath and nods her head. “Yeah, did you pick this?”

“Mm-hm,” Chaeyoung smiles, pleased. “I picked them this morning. The basil was fresh, I just washed it off and chopped up a handful and added it in. Do you want to try some?”

Chaeyoung stirs the sauce lightly, and lifts a spoonful up to her mouth, blowing on it carefully before offering it to Jennie. The first thing she notices when she tries it is that the tomato sauce is thick and slightly spicy, but it’s so good that she eats the rest of it off the spoon. 

“Did you put cayenne pepper in this?” she asks, licking her lips. 

“Just a little bit. I didn’t want to put too much of it because of Nicky.” 

“It’s really good,” Jennie murmurs. 

“Thanks! It’s almost done. Can you grab some plates down and set the table?” 

“Sure.” 

Jennie peeks her head into the living room and sees Nicky sprawled sideways on the couch, half of her face in Milo’s fur and her arm wrapped around the dog’s neck. She walks over quietly and brushes her hair back, the little girl blinking up at her slowly. 

“Yes, mama?” 

“Come on. Can you help me set the table? We’re gonna eat.” 

“Okay,” she says and sits up, Milo lifting her head up so Nicky can slide off the couch and take Jennie’s hand. 

Chaeyoung’s table is small and round, something that she found at a consignment store a few months back and has paint that’s slightly chipped on one of the legs. Nick takes the bowls from her mom and places them at each chair, while Jennie fills their glasses with water and grabs a handful of napkins out of the closet. 

Chaeyoung finishes grating a block of parmesan cheese over the top of the pasta and reaches over to turn the stove off, fanning some of the smoke away before she grabs the pan and walks over to set it on the table. Milo barks softly, walking over to rub her nose against Nicky’s leg before she turns in a circle and plops down beside her feet. 

They eat and conversation flows easily; Chaeyoung talks about this author that she’s been wanting to bring to the store for a reading and some festival that’s happening in October that they should go to. Jennie listens and occasionally helps Nicky clean her face from all the sauce around her mouth. 

When they finish eating, they cut a few slices from the cheesecake and eat it with ice cream, Nicky licking her fingers until they’re sticky from her saliva, and Chaeyoung polishing off her plate after cutting another slice for herself.

She finds her dog’s leash sometime later, clipping it on to MIlo’s collar, as they shuffle outside to take a walk. The sun is setting behind the buildings, painting the sky in different colors of orange and pink. Nicky walks ahead of them, holding Milo’s leash and stopping to crouch down by the ground any time the dog pauses to sniff at something. 

“What are you thinking about?” Chaeyoung asks quietly, knocking their shoulders together. 

“Nothing,” Jennie shakes her head. She shoves her hands into her pockets and watches as Nicky laughs when Milo starts chasing a butterfly in circles. 

“Why do you always lie? Do you know that you’re like really _really_ bad at it?” 

“Shut up,” Jennie grumbled. “It’s nothing.” 

“It’s obviously _not_ nothing. You’ve been acting weird ever since Friday. Well you’ve been acting weird for a while actually, I just never brought it up.” 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jennie murmurs. 

“Why?”

“I just don’t.” 

“Well you should. It might help, you know? To like...to talk to someone. What...are you afraid or something?”

“I’m not afraid,” Jennie says. And she’s not, not really at least. It’s not her thoughts that scare her or what’s going on in her mind; it’s what would happen if she were to try to act on them, if she were to try to logically make sense of it. 

They stop walking when they reach the entrance of the park, Nicky leading Milo over to the bench as she climbs up and pulls out another juice box from her backpack. The dog nudges her nose against Nick’s legs, whimpering up at her. 

“Then what is it?” 

Jennie stares at the grass for a long moment. She watches the line of ants crawl across a rock towards an ant pile covered in mud and twigs. The breeze sweeps through her hair, ruffling the flyaway strands that spill out of her ponytail. 

“I’m just tired,” she murmurs. 

“Tired of what?”

“Tired of everything,” Jennie says. She lets out a deep breath and blinks up at the sky. The clouds have almost entirely vanished. 

“What’s everything?”

“I want to go home,” she whispers. “I don’t want to be alone anymore. I’m tired of living in that apartment. I’m tired of sitting at that table and eating by myself. I can barely sleep because my mattress is so uncomfortable; I toss and turn all night until I get up and just walk around like a ghost.” 

Jennie swallows against the lump in her throat, rubbing at her eyes. “Fuck,” she mutters. “I’m just﹣I don’t know what the hell I’m doing anymore. I don’t _want_ to do what I’m doing anymore.” 

It hurts. It hurts because this is the first time she’s ever told anyone about how she feels. It’s the first time that Jennie’s voiced out loud what all of this was doing to her﹣what this separation was doing to her. 

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.” She blinks the tears out of her eyes and pulls her sleeves over her hands so she can wipe her eyes. 

“Have you told Jisoo any of this?” Chaeyoung asks her softly. She steps closer, grasping a hold of Jennie’s hand and lacing their fingers together.

Wordlessly, she shakes her head. She’s afraid of how Jisoo would react. She’s afraid of the look that might cross her face if she listened to Jennie say any of this. She’s afraid of ruining what they both agreed on﹣what they both felt was right. But it fucking _hurts._

It hurts that she can only see Nicky on the weekends. It hurts that she’s growing up so fast and she can’t see any of it. It hurts that her thumb hovers over Jisoo’s contact and she has to force herself not to call her. It hurts that whenever they talk, she always does so in short statements, holding back what she really wants to say to Jisoo. 

It hurts because she’s still in love with her. She’s so fucking in love with Jisoo that it physically pains her to be separated from her﹣that something is crawling inside of her chest and the longer this goes on, the more apparent that pressure becomes. 

“I can’t,” Jennie whispers. 

“You have to,” Chaeyoung says and tugs on her hand. “You have to tell﹣” 

“I said I _can’t_ ,” Jennie says again and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. She doesn’t want to cry, not like this. Not while she’s in front of Nicky and the little girl, always perceptive, would beg to know what’s wrong before bringing it up to Jisoo. 

She lets go of Chaeyoung’s hand and balls them into fists at her side, exhaling slowly and trying to calm herself down. Luckily, Nicky is running in the grass ahead, Milo chasing after her with her tongue hanging out of her mouth and her tail wagging. 

“Let’s go back. It’s getting dark,” Jennie murmurs.

By the time they reach Chaeyoung’s place, NIcky is nodding off on Jennie’s shoulder, her head lolling gently from side-to-side as they walk up the steps. Milo noses at the entrance, whimpering at the door, when Chaeyoung suddenly pauses and looks at Jennie. 

“I forgot my phone inside. Can I borrow yours real quick? I have to call someone.” 

“Uh…” Jennie says, her eyebrows furrowing. “Yeah, go ahead. It’s um, it's in my back pocket. Is everything alright?” 

“Yeah!” she says quickly. “I just﹣I think I might have misstated something on a shipment yesterday and I want to double check. Here,” she hands Jennie her keys and waves her phone. 

“I’ll be right up after I finish. Go inside, you’re probably tired from carrying her.” 

“Okay…” Jennie mumbles. She glances at Chaeyoung again before shrugging her shoulders and walking inside, whistling softly for Milo to follow her.

* * *

Later on that night after they’ve made it back to Jennie’s place and Nicky is put down for bed, Jisoo calls her. 

Jennie stares at her phone while it rings. She’s in the middle of brushing her teeth, so she ignores it. Instead, she leans over the sink and spits before washing her mouth. When the call ends, she gargles with mouthwash and flosses before finally leaving the bathroom. It isn’t until she’s crawling into her own bed, that the phone starts ringing again and she finally picks it up.

“Yeah?”

“Were you sleeping?” Jisoo asks. She looks like she’s sitting down, maybe on her couch or in her room because she’s got on a ratted shirt and sleep shorts. Her glasses are on as well and it makes her eyes look bigger, it makes them look darker too. 

“No. I was...I was in the bathroom. Sorry I missed your call, what’s up?”

“Nothing,” she shakes her head and then pauses. She’s staring at Jennie and it makes her uncomfortable, but only because she’s an open book. Everything has always been so plainly spelled out across her face. 

“Just wanted to talk to you,” Jisoo whispers. 

Jennie settles back against the headboard, her pillow digging into her back as she snorts. “Are you sure?”

It doesn’t hold any amusement in it, at least not for her, and Jisoo must pick up on it because she grows quiet. It makes something uncomfortable churn inside of Jennie’s stomach. She doesn’t want to talk. Not after what happened at the park; not after the way she walked home with Nicky in her arms and felt like she had been scooped hollow. 

She’s tired. She’s so tired and for once she just wants to sleep. She doesn’t want to see Jisoo’s face either. 

“I’m really not fe﹣”

“Do you want to come back here?” Jisoo asks suddenly. 

Jennie freezes, her eyes widening suddenly in shock. She almost drops her phone on the sheets, but her grip is so tight that the plastic case feels slick in her hand. 

Neither of them say anything to each other, not until Jisoo clears her throat and pushes her glasses up her nose. 

“Did you hear me?” she asks again. 

Jennie nods but then she licks her lips and answers her. “Yes. Y﹣Yes...yes I heard you. I heard what you said.”

_But why?_

“Why are you﹣” Jennie squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. She wants to make sense of this but she’s confused. She wasn’t expecting Jisoo to ask her something like that and now she doesn’t know what to say. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while,” Jisoo murmurs and then she looks away from the screen, chuckling lowly to herself before she turns back. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask you because I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’ve been thinking about it ever since you started therapy. I just…” she shakes her head. “I just didn’t know how to bring it up to you.” 

Jennie doesn’t open her mouth. She can barely feel her fingers, so Jisoo takes her pause and fills it for her. 

“I just want to know where you’re at. Just﹣” she licks her lips. “Just please tell me what’s going on in your head, yeah? Please,” she murmurs. 

And suddenly Jennie starts crying. Hot, stinging tears run down her cheeks and she tries to stop it, tries to hold it in, but she can’t. As hard as she tries to press the heel of her hands against her eyes, they just continue to flow. 

That thing that was crawling inside of her chest, that was making a home for itself inside of her, steadily begins to unravel, like it can no longer fit itself inside of her body. Her hands shake and Jisoo says nothing, she says nothing while Jennie cries in front of her.

“I don’t even know﹣” she starts and sniffles loudly. “ _I_ don’t even know what’s in my own head.” 

“Yes you do,” Jisoo says quietly. “You’re the only one that knows what’s going on in your head. So just﹣” she says and it hurts to hear the desperation in her voice. “Just tell me: do you want to come home?”

_Home._

Is it still her home? Does Jisoo still sleep on the left side of the bed? Does she still leave the bathroom light on with a glass of water on Jennie’s side for when she inevitably wakes up in the middle of the night? Does she still reach for the brown mug in the back, but then put it away because she’s not making coffee for two anymore? 

It was Jennie’s choice to leave. It was her choice to find somewhere else to stay just for a little bit, just until she was able to get some help. Jisoo had agreed and she helped her. They looked for apartments together, they looked for the best hospital to take Jennie, they did this together. 

But somewhere after this became the new normal, after Jennie was able to see Nicky again on the phone, and then over Skype, and then eventually during weekend visits, Jennie felt herself start to grow agitated. 

She was mad at herself. She was mad that she had let herself get this bad. She was mad that she couldn’t control who she was back then. She was mad that she couldn’t live with the people that she cared the absolute world for. She was mad that she had ignored everything, ignored all the signs until it was too late﹣until it became too much. 

“Do you…” Jennie whispers and it makes her even nervous to ask this. “Do you...do you _want_ me to come home?” 

Jisoo doesn’t even hesitate. She snorts and it should sound ugly, but it only makes Jennie’s ribs ache. 

“Do you even need to ask me that?” her eyes dance with mirth and her smile is soft but reserved. “You know what I want,” she says softly. 

“I want you to come home whenever you’re ready. Not because you’re having a moment, or you think _I_ want you to come back. I want you to want to come back. I want you to know what’s best for yourself, for Jennie, and I want you to do what you know is the right choice.” 

“I know,” Jennie sniffles, rubbing her nose until it feels sore. “I know...I know what I want.” 

“But do you feel okay to want that, whatever it is?” 

Jennie knows what Jisoo means. She knows what the older woman is asking, and for the first time in a long fucking time, she does. It used to be confusing before. It used to hurt to dig through her thoughts, to wade through the torrential downpour of the voices that were yelling at her, at the simple things that became increasingly overbearing. It was difficult to find her head in anything, to find a part of herself that was at any point involved in the decisions that she was making for her life, and for awhile, she just went along with it. 

It was like she was sitting in the car but she wasn’t behind the wheel, like she was a passenger to something. For years, Jennie allowed it too. She would walk and do things and aimlessly partake in stuff that she had no memory of, that she couldn’t remember because she wasn’t connected to herself﹣she wasn’t connected to anything. 

“Just tell me,” Jennie whispers and she looks at the camera, she stares at Jisoo through teary eyes. 

“Just tell me that you’ll help me...that things...that things will be the way it used to be.”

“It won’t be the way it used to be,” Jisoo shakes her head. “But it’ll be _better_ this time because we know now. You're taking medication, you're talking to a professional now. I can help you too and you can talk to me and we’ll get through it like we always do﹣together.”

Jennie’s fingers shake, but it’s not because she’s afraid. She’s anxious, she’ll be anxious for the rest of her life, she’s aware of that. But it’s because her head isn’t muddled, her brain doesn’t feel disconnected to the rest of her body. It doesn’t seem like she’s walking down the street with half of her thoughts in one direction and half of her thoughts in the other. 

“Someone loves you over here,” Jisoo murmurs quietly. “Someone does.” 

“Who?” Jennie croaks. Her throat burns and her eyes feel swollen from the crying but she can’t help. She has to look up, she has to look up and see Jisoo.

Her smile is warm, like someone crawling inside your chest and hugging all the parts of you that feel ugly. Her smile, even if it’s closed, feels like the first rays of sunshine on your face when you first wake up. Her smile feels like somebody climbed into Jennie’s lungs and told her to _‘breathe.’_

“Who do you think?” Jisoo smirks.


	5. Maybe if I told you the right words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes there are people that are meant to be together and sometimes there are people that have to promise each other that they'll be together. Jennie and Lisa are probably neither of those people.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pairing: jennie/lisa
> 
> tags: angst, lack of communication, hurt/comfort, getting back together, romance, friends-to-lovers, marriage pact
> 
> request for: ermita

**2019: 23 years old**

It doesn’t exactly feel like Christmas yet, but being around Jisoo or rather－standing in a corner in Jisoo’s lavishly decorated loft－will make you feel like you can taste the hot chocolate and fresh pine needles on your tongue. 

The loft is decorated immaculately, with chrome and red streamers hanging from the ceiling in criss cross patterns. There are clusters of green balloons tied to the chairs, on the kitchen counter, and next to the large flat screen TV that’s playing Mariah Carey’s _‘All I Want for Christmas is You.’_ The miniature Santa figurines placed on the mantel above the fireplace and on various shelves should look tacky, but the flowers arranged next to each of them only look elegant and serve to further remind Jennie that Christmas is only four days away. 

Doyeon walks out of the kitchen carrying a bucket of ice with two bottles of Prosecco inside and sets it down on the coffee table, waiting for Tzuyu to finish passing out the glasses to everyone. When she has her own, she sends a small smile to Tzuyu and thanks her before twisting her head around to see where Jisoo had run off to. 

It was her engagement party but Jennie felt like she had barely seen the older woman more than twice tonight. Granted, there were quite a few people here: college friends, some close colleagues from work, her and Seulgi’s parents and some close relatives, so she could understand why Jisoo had to work the room. 

But if she was being honest, it felt weird to stand her off by herself, to watch everyone talk amongst each other and sing along horribly to whatever song came up next on screen, or take selfies next to the Christmas trees placed around the loft. 

When Jennie looks up at the TV again, she watches Mariah Carey sing in a long, embroidered red robe, and chuckles to herself. Her eyes slide over to the Christmas tree tucked along the wall, next to the floor to ceiling windows. It’s the largest tree in the room, decorated with shiny ornaments, twinkling lights in various colors, and glittering figurines of reindeer and snowflakes to compliment the balloons. Jennie knows this because she went with Jisoo and her mom to pick it out at the tree farm. 

It was somewhat of a tradition between them, something that they started doing together when they were college freshmen and Jennie couldn’t go back home to California for winter break. Jisoo’s mom had insisted that Jennie spend Christmas with them for the break and despite her misgivings about intruding on their family time and whatnot, Jisoo had prodded her as well and demanded that she come home to Gunpo.

 _‘I’ll move out and then you’ll have to get a new roommate. Also, I won’t let you use my straightener anymore,’_ Jisoo had threatened her then.

It seemed silly when she thought back on it, but at the moment, Jisoo was her closest friend and she really didn’t have anywhere else to be during break. 

_‘You’re just going to spend it watching She-ra and eating takeout out of that god awful tacky, yellow mug.’_

That should have offended Jennie too, but Jisoo was right, so she agreed to put her pathetic Christmas plans on hold and packed up a bag to take with her back to Gunpo. And it was fun; it was truly awesome. They made eggnog and hot chocolate with these huge ass marshmallows that Jisoo kept getting all over her mouth. They went for a walk while it snowed and took pictures in Seoul at the department store where there were huge Christmas trees, lights, and a fake mall Santa posing with little kids. The tree farm was outside of the city and was packed with families and couples looking for a tree, but they had managed to find the perfect one, almost tall enough that Jennie worried it wouldn’t fit in their house.

And that night as Jennie sat curled up on the couch, watching Jisoo and her dad wrap gifts long after her mother had fallen asleep, she would look at the ice covering the windowsill and smell the cinnamon and pinecone from the kitchen and it made sense. It made sense why Jisoo liked Christmas so much and why she was so hellbent on having her engagement party now. It was the happiest that Jennie had ever seen her. 

She’s broken out of her thoughts by Nayeon touching her elbow, her eyebrow cocked up in a slight look of confusion as she regards her. 

“Why are you standing over here by yourself?”

 _Waiting,_ Jennie wants to tell her but she doesn’t say that. Instead she shakes her head and thinks of something to say to Nayeon that will suffice to keep her from prodding. She learned early on that it was better to be straight up with her because Nayeon liked to ask a lot of questions.

“I was looking for Jisoo,” she shrugs. “Besides, I don’t really know that many people here.”

It’s not really true and Nayeon knows it because she narrows her eyes at Jennie like she’s about to call her out on it, but decides against it. 

“Come have a drink over by the couch with me and Minhyun, “ she suggested, angling her head over to the sectional where another woman with straight black hair is sipping slowly out of her glass.

“I don’t know…” she says uneasily, but before she can say anymore, Nayeon is rolling her eyes and grabbing her by the wrist to tug her over to the couch. 

“Minhyun, Jennie. Jennie, this is Minhyun,” Nayeon says, quickly introducing them to each other. 

Minhyun smiles warmly at her and tips her glass at Jennie. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same,” Jennie smiles awkwardly and follows Nayeon as she pushes her to sit down beside her on the couch. They’re squeezed in next to Max, Jisoo’s cousin and his mother, as they talk quietly beside each other over something on their cell phone. 

It’s awkward, mostly because everyone is already talking, engaging in conversation, and drinking more than enough Prosecco than Jisoo had probably planned for them to drink. 

_“So…”_ Minhyun says, somewhat startling Jennie. “How do you know Jisoo..or Seulgi?”

 _I’m her best friend,_ Jennie wants to say. It’s almost at the tip of her tongue and for some reason she doesn’t know why she doesn’t. They’ve known each other for over twelve years, they’ve spent every night since they graduated college calling each other and checking in with the other. And as much as she hates to admit it, she’s probably seen Jisoo naked more times than anyone she’s ever dated. 

“She’s like really good friends with Jisoo,” Nayeon says for her instead. “I met them senior year at a party for the sorority that I was in and Jennie was trying to get my number,” she smirks. 

“I was _not!_ ” Jennie flushes, turning her head so she could glare at the other woman. 

“Yes you were!” Nayeon giggles. She pushes some of her hair over her shoulder and links their arms together. “You kept following me around and talking about the house like I didn’t live there. It was cute,” she smiles, scrunching her nose. 

“I was _not_ trying to get your number!” she huffs. Okay, yes, Jennie _did_ want to get Nayeon’s number. She was cute, had a really adorable smile that made her gums show, and she had _really_ perky breasts that shouldn’t have been such a big issue but it was. And no, Nayeon never did give her cellphone number to her, probably because she wasn’t interested, but then they became friends and the attraction died down real fast. 

“Did you give her your number?” Minhyun snorted. She looked like she was enjoying this shit show and Jennie would too if she wasn’t so traumatized by the fact that it was her life they were talking about. 

“No,” Nayeon shook her head. “I was seeing someone at the time, but if I wasn’t then yeah,” she laughs. 

“You never said you were seeing someone!” Jennie gasped, smacking her on the arm. “You should have said something!”

“You didn’t check my Instagram? I had like a bunch of pictures with that one girl from the soccer team on my feed. I even took one with my finger in her－”

 _“Okaaaay,”_ Jennie frowns, cutting her off. “I get it, I get it. You were taken.” 

Nayeon smiles, squeezing her arm, and Jennie thinks for just a second that she’s grateful to have her as a friend even though she makes her life so fucking miserable sometimes. 

“How do you know Jisoo?” Jennie asks Minhyun, hoping to steer the conversation somewhere away from her. 

Minhyun takes another sip from her glass and shakes her head. “Oh, I don’t. I’ve been seeing Nayeon for about three weeks and she invited me,” she chuckles. 

Jennie snorts and rolls her eyes. That sounds about right if it’s Nayeon they’re talking about. 

“Well, it’s nice to meet you.” 

“Same, and can you tell Jisoo that her place is just…” she pauses to take a look around the loft, expressing her awe silently. “It’s just absolutely stunning.” 

“I’ll be sure to tell her,” Jennie nods. Despite all the decorations, it really is beautiful and Jennie wrings her hands together as Minhyun smiles and drifts back to a previous conversation that she was having with Nayeon. 

Despite trying to keep Jennie included, they eventually meander into a talk that has nothing to do with her and when they both disappear to grab another drink, Jennie is left to sit on the couch and watch everyone move about the room. A few friends stop to chat idly, Jisoo’s mother comes by to kiss her cheek and tell her how pretty her hair looks, and at some point she actually laughs at Dohyun hacking up an olive that he accidentally swallowed from his martini glass. But if she’s honest, she just feels bored. 

It’s not until she’s coming back from the bathroom where she can hear the music muted from the hallway, that she bumps into someone. 

“Oh, shit. Sorry－” 

“I was looking for you!”

Jennie’s head snaps up so fast that she feels a vibration travel up the back of her neck and she has to hold back a wince that’s crawling in her throat. Lisa is still staring at her with wide eyes, but she eventually breaks off into a small smile, her lips parting to show her teeth. 

“Hey,” she says quietly. 

And she looks good. Her eyes are rimmed with mascara, and there’s blush on her cheeks, accentuating the features on her face and for once, she doesn’t look tired like she hasn’t slept in three days. Her hair is still cut short in the same bob that she had mentioned to Jennie in passing but seemed to like a lot. She has on these dorky reindeer antlers and Jennie would suggest that she take them off, but it matches the horrible green sweater with lights and fake ornaments attached to it. So she doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it looks gross. 

It’s just so Lisa. 

“You look great,” the younger woman smiles, reaching forward to tug on a strand on Jennie’s curls. It had taken her nearly two hours to get it done and manage to keep them looking nice by the time of the party, so she frowns and swats Lisa’s hand away. 

“Don’t, you’ll mess it up.” 

“I know, I know,” Lisa smiles, rolling her eyes in the process. “You can be such a tyrant when it comes to your fucking hair.”

“Well, this _fucking hair_ takes a lot of work to look like this. Have some respect,” she pouts. 

That makes Lisa smile even wider, enough so that Jennie can see all of her teeth and she hates the way that it makes her want to smile back, that it makes her want to tell Lisa to never smile like that to anyone else. 

“Hey,” she whispers again. 

“Hey,” Jennie chuckles. “You look like someone threw up on you at Santa’s workshop.” 

“That’s the idea,” Lisa laughs, tugging a bit at her sweater. “You think it’s too much?” she tilts her head. 

“Oh, without a doubt. Make sure you’re not in any pictures with Jisoo or Seulgi.” 

“Shut up!” Lisa whines and makes a move like she’s about to hit Jennie on her arm, but instead she pulls her in for a hug.

The thing about Lisa is that she doesn’t know the weight of her own body, so when she hugs you, she does it with the entirety of her weight. She’ll sling her arms around you and pull you into her chest and if she’s taller than you, she’ll dig her chin into the top of your head in a move that’s supposed to be annoying, but only feels comforting to Jennie. 

It should feel suffocating honestly, but Jennie hugs her back just as tightly, her fingers digging into the back of her sweater. She breathes in the scent of her perfume that smells like lavender and fresh laundry, and for a moment she wonders what someone would think if they walked back to the bathroom and saw them like this. 

When Lisa pulls back, she keeps her hands on Jennie’s arms and offers her a small smile. “I mean it, you know. You look _really_ good.” 

“Stop,” Jennie groans, punching Lisa lightly on her shoulder. “ I look alright.” 

Lisa scoffs like she wants to say something back, but she ends up just taking Jennie’s hand and starts playing with her fingers. 

“How was New York?” Jennie asks quietly. She can hear the song change in the living room to something that sounds like Michael Bublé but she isn’t sure. 

Lisa looks up from where she’s taping Jennie’s thumb and shrugs at her. Her eyes seem a little tense and usually Jennie wouldn’t push her when she looks like that, preferring for the other woman to come to her, but she can’t resist. It’s been nearly two weeks and she misses hearing Lisa, watching Lisa, looking at Lisa talk. 

“I think it was good that I kept my expectations low. I had a feeling that my father didn’t want to see me as much as I didn’t want to see him, but my mom insisted, you know? It just－” 

She opens her mouth to say something else, but it looks like she can’t find the words to properly express what she wants to say, or she doesn’t want to find the words. Either way, her eyebrows furrow and her mouth screws up in a grimace as she finally decides to give up. 

“It doesn’t matter,” she sighs, her shoulders sagging slightly. “Just know that it was a waste of time and a total waste of air miles.”

“We can talk about it later?” Jennie suggests, turning her hand over to take Lisa’s own. She laces their fingers together and tries to tamper down that feeling inside of her when Lisa smiles at their hands. 

“Later,” she nods. “Besides, it’s Jisoo’s engagement party. I don’t want to talk about this stuff here. I just want to drink and have a good time.” 

Jennie snorts and doesn’t complain when Lisa pulls them along back into the party. 

* * *

They have dinner at the turn of Brenda Lee’s _‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’_ and somehow everyone is able to squeeze in at the table, with some stealing chairs from the island and the living room to find a place to sit. 

As they’re passing around food and sharing stories, Lisa tells Jennie about how her mother’s doing, her PS5 that she wants to bring over so they can play Miles Morales, and this rash that she has on her finger that’s been bothering her since last weekend. 

“It’s probably herpes,” Jennie says and she almost laughs out loud when Lisa chokes on her food and ends up spitting it out. 

“I don’t have _herpes!_ ” she whispers harshly, dabbing her mouth with the napkin. She looks around the table, but everyone is either too preoccupied talking to the newly engaged couple or eating. 

“Don’t say that!”

"Don’t sleep around so much then,” Jennie shrugs. And it’s not that Lisa sleeps around either. When they lived together as roommates, Lisa would bring home girls sometimes and sometimes it meant something, but other times it was just her trying to be with someone. It was none of Jennie’s business what they did anyway. 

“You’re the worst,” Lisa grumbles and she wants to say something else, but Seulgi chooses that moment to get her attention and ask her about that time they went skinny dipping in their apartment pool. 

* * *

As the night drags on, they take an endless amount of pictures, listen to Jisoo and Seulgi talk about how they met for the twentieth time because Jennie’s probably heard this story more times than she’s sang the National Anthem out loud. But Lisa stays by her side, sometimes drifting off to talk to someone or to take a selfie because people can’t get enough of her sweater. 

It’s nice now that Lisa is here.

And Jennie doesn’t want to think about that too much. She doesn’t want to think about how it felt to run into her outside of the bathroom when she initially thought she wasn’t going to make it. She doesn’t want to think about the way Lisa touched her hand or the way she looked when her eyes did that thing when she was talking about her father－always her father－the way she knew how to shrink herself. And some part of Jennie does ignore it. She tries to, but it becomes increasingly hard to do when Lisa finds her way back to her side. When she curls her hand around her waist like she belongs to her. Or when she tugs Jennie over so they can press their faces together for a photo. 

At some point, it almost becomes suffocating to ignore what’s going on and what’s not going on between them because in reality－there’s nothing there. But then these small things happen and Jennie has to tell her brain to quiet down. She has to tell herself that all of these little things mean nothing no matter how badly she wants them to be _something._

And so when she feels like this, she somehow finds herself drinking inevitably. It’s hard to avoid it because everyone else is drinking and no matter how many times she tells herself to leave the Cristal alone, she finds that by the time she’s set her glass down, it’s already been her fourth one. The more she drinks, the less she becomes aware of these thoughts and these tiny actions that do or don’t mean anything, the more freely she finds everyone else talking. 

As Seulgi spreads herself out on the couch, Jisoo tucks her head into her shoulder and laughs at something that Nayeon says but Jennie can’t really remember. Her skin is tingling and her mouth feels warm, like she wants to say something but her tongue feels too heavy to say anything. The songs begin to blend into every other track and she jostles slightly when Lisa finds her way back to her, slinging her arm over the back of the couch and messing with her shoulder. 

Her thigh is warm as it presses up against her own but she ignores it in favor of the way Jisoo finally looks over at her. She looks really happy. Even though they can both tell that each other are considerably drunk, they’re both always quiet about it, choosing instead to watch everyone else and keep their thoughts to themselves. 

But Jisoo opens her mouth and she must say something because she makes a face and then repeats it again. 

“...dating?”

“What?”

“I said,” she sighs, and licks her bottom lip turning the skin even more red, “Are you guys dating?”

Jennie almost vomits right there on her twelve hundred dollar sectional. She must look like it too because Seulgi laughs, moving to slap Jisoo’s shoulder, and send them both an apologetic look. 

“Ignore her. She’s had too much to drink.” she snorts. 

_I know_ , Jennie wants to say. She knows that sometimes Jisoo can’t keep her mouth shut when she’s had a bit much, that she sometimes says things that make no sense.

“No,” Jisoo frowns. She pushes herself up from where she’s laying against Seulgi’s chest and it scares Jennie because she looks serious, like she wants to say something important. Her eyes look a little glossy and her lips are burning red, probably from licking them so much, but she stares at the both of them nonetheless. 

“Are you two...you know?” she gestures between Lisa and Jennie. “Are you two, like seeing each other?”

Everyone that’s in the vicinity of their conversation seems to stop what they’re doing and stares at them while taking sips from their glass. It’s unfair really how Seulgi and Jisoo are the one marrying, but somehow this has become about them. 

“No,” she coughs and then clears her throat, shaking her head. “No, what the hell, Soo. You know we’re not dating.” 

If anyone would know it would be her. Jennie tells her everything, almost as much as she tells Lisa.

“You guys have just been close tonight is all,” she shrugs. 

“Babe, they’re always close,” Seulgi mumbles, squeezing Jisoo’s shoulder. “That’s just them.”

 _Yes, it is just us!_ Jennie wants to scream. _Now let’s leave it at that and start talking about your fucking wedding._ But of course, of course no one can let this conversation taper off like that.

“They’re always close to each other,” Nayeon adds in matter-of-factly. “They’ve been like that since senior year.”

Please stop talking. 

Please stop talking. 

Please stop talking. 

Someone should see these words flashing across her forehead in big, bright red letters. _Someone_ should see it. In fact, Lisa probably does, because her fingers are digging into the material of Jennie’s dress and it should be uncomfortable, and it _is_ , but it’s mostly frightening because everyone can tell and no one is trying to derail this conversation.

“Remember when they used to sleep in the same bed during our dorm room slumber parties?” Tzuyu chuckles. 

Lisa makes some weird, strangled noise in the back of her throat, something that makes the hair on the back of Jennie’s neck stand up and she wants to do something like that too, but out loud so everyone will get the hint and shut up. 

“They were so cute, all cuddled up and shit,” Jisoo snorts. 

Honestly, if it wasn’t Jisoo’s engagement party, Jennie is almost one-hundred percent sure that she would have thrown her drink in her face already. 

“And they used to hate sharing their study break snacks with anyone else but each other,” Doyeon chuckles. 

Jennie might spare the younger girl because Doyeon’s umma does her nails for a discount since she’s friends with her daughter, but if she keeps talking, Jennie might be okay with going back to paying full price. 

_"Actually,”_ Nayeon says, pursing her lips, “I always thought you guys had something secretly going on. You’re telling us nothing happened...ever?” she raises her eyebrow. 

“Yes!” Lisa manages to choke out. 

“That’s exactly right! Jennie and I have never, _ever_ dated. We’re friends, that’s it." 

And it’s true. Other than Jisoo, Lisa is Jennie’s closest friend. Despite being initially awkward around each other during their first meeting, they seemed to click almost immediately afterward. Lisa was funny and caring and she gave so much to be your friend that Jennie couldn’t help but reciprocate it. It was so easy to talk to Lisa because she listened to you with her whole body. She had a way of making you feel like you were the only person whose opinion mattered. When she smiled, it never failed to make Jennie feel better, it never failed to make her smile back. Lisa was like that; she was like something that you wanted to keep giving back to. And so they became close sharing secrets, spending the night at each other’s dorms and eventually their own apartments, going out to dinner, watching movies in the backseat of Lisa’s Range Rover and doing stupid shit when they got piss drunk at 3 am in front of 7-Eleven. 

Lisa was－is－her best friend. 

“Stop,” she finally frowns, shooting a glare at Jisoo, but she must be more intoxicated than she thinks because all Jisoo does is laugh and roll her eyes. 

“I’m just saying,” she grins and winks at Jennie, like she’s in on some secret that only the two of them are aware of. 

It makes Jennie want to vomit. 

* * *

The cool air feels good on her skin when Jennie steps outside an hour or so later. The party has mostly thinned out now with only Jisoo and Seulgi’s parents still inside talking quietly over mulled wine and sharing photos from the party. 

The faint sounds of Frank Sinatra play from inside and if Jennie craned her head around, she could see Jisoo and Seulgi dancing slowly in the center of the room, their heads close together and their smiles private. 

As much as Jennie wants to punch the fuck out of Jisoo for that shit earlier, she’s still happy that she came to her party and that Jisoo seems happy too. Even from here she knows that it would have eventually come to this for both of them－Jisoo was in all the way for commitment and she knew that Seulgi wanted that too. They were made for each other. 

When she takes a deep breath, she feels herself sway and hesitantly reaches out to grip the railing on the balcony. It’s freezing outside and really, she should go inside because her legs are shaking and these tights are doing nothing to keep her skin from turning red. But when she closes her eyes, it feels like she can think without the noise of plates clashing together or Christmas music, or the smell of Jisoo drifting past her with that expensive perfume. 

“Just ten minutes,” she whispers out loud to herself. “I just need ten minutes.” 

It’s so quiet that Jennie can hear the exact notes of the song as it flows out of the speaker. She can watch the street lights flicker and the Christmas displays twinkle under the fall of the night. 

She tightens her grip on the rail and lets out another deep breath, watching small wisps of smoke leave her mouth. Just when she thinks about turning around to go inside, she hears the door slide open and the sound of someone stumble outside. 

“Oh.”

Jennie doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s Lisa. She joins her silently at the rail, placing her hand over Jennie’s and she wants to pull away because her fingers are fucking freezing but she’s afraid it might come across mean. 

“It’s cold outside, Jen,” Lisa mumbles.

Jennie nods but doesn’t say anything. It almost feels like her mouth isn’t really working properly, which should be a problem, but she’s also kind of exhausted and a bit drunk, so that could be a good thing too. 

“I drove here, you know? Do you want to go back together? My car has heated seats,” she murmurs. 

Her Range Rover does have heated seats. Jennie remembers when they went skiing one time over the holidays and after falling more times than she actually remembers being upright, they had bundled into her car and just sat for twenty minutes soaking in the warmth of the leather seats. It was probably the best part of the trip, minus the room service and the incredible views. 

“We can pick up pizza too on the way back,” she shrugs. 

One thing about Lisa is that when she gets drunk, she likes to talk a lot. So Jennie listens to her mumble off random things and makes note of how different Gunpo smells from Brooklyn, and whether the cab fare is the same in the city as it is in Seoul. Most of it makes no sense, and at some point, Jennie laughs and then Lisa starts laughing though neither know why they’re laughing. 

“I think that the hot dogs are－”

“Do you wanna make a bet?” Jennie asks suddenly. 

Lisa stopped talking. She lifts her hand to her mouth, rubbing her lips and then looks at Jennie, nodding her head. “What?”

Jennie swallows, tasting some of the whiskey and the smoked ham from earlier in the back of her throat. When she looks out at the sky, she wants to try to find those constellations Jisoo is always talking about, but all she sees are stars covered by smog. 

“We should get married,” Jennie swallows and for some reason her fingers loosen on the rail. “We should get married when we’re twenty-seven, but only if we’re single. Deal?”

Lisa doesn’t say anything for a long time and it should worry Jennie because she’s standing right beside her, she can feel her breathing. But it doesn’t make her worry－it only makes her anxious. 

“Like _married_ , married?” Lisa finally asks. She turns towards Jennie and with her entire attention on her, Jennie nods, still staring out at the sky.

“Like married with a ring and a certificate?” she asks. 

Jennie nods again and Lisa falls quiet. Jennie has only been in Seoul a handful of times to see it in snow, but when it does, she feels the first drop of ice hit her nose before she sees it. Like tiny little particles of dust, snow begins to fall, gradually blanketing the rooftops of buildings and covering the sidewalk with a gloss of sheet. 

She blinks slowly, feeling the snow coat her eyelashes and it isn’t until she wipes it away that she sees Lisa take her hand and intertwine their fingers together. 

“I think it’s cool,” Lisa shrugs, like they’re talking about a tv show or a new game that she bought for half off in Busan. “I’ll marry you when we’re twenty-seven.”

* * *

**2020: 24 years old**

The letter sits in Jennie’s laptop bag for about a week before she opens it up again. After getting home, she sets her keys in the dish on the counter and toes her shoes off, placing them next to her workout sneakers. 

The lights switch on as she walks down the hallway until she makes it to the living room. When she sits down, she throws her things on the coffee table and sinks back into the cushions. The fluorescent lights that hang overhead are so annoying, but her dad installed them last time he visited her and she doesn’t have the nerve or the willpower to remove them. 

On the bus back home, she told herself that she would find something－anything－ to do that would take her mind off of this _thing_ , but here she is sitting on her couch with nothing on her mind but that letter. 

With another sigh, she pushes herself off the couch and makes her way into the kitchen, pulling open the door to see what she can make as a quick dinner. There’s mostly takeout boxes from nearby restaurants, a bag of pasta that she can heat up in the microwave, and a menu from a Thai restaurant that she snatches up and throws in the trash. 

Jennie pulls out some leftover parmesan chicken and while she leaves it to cook, she takes a quick shower and turns on some music, humming gently to the words as she finds herself back in the kitchen. 

One thing she loves about living on her own is the silence. But one thing she hates about living on her own is her thoughts. It’s why her stomach is in knots the entire time she’s eating. It’s why she chugs down nearly half a bottle of water without stopping. It’s also why she finds herself back on her couch and pulling the envelope out. 

The manilla paper is smooth and as she pulls the letter back out, she moves her plate to the table and smoothes out the letter on her lap. 

It’s mostly formalities: things like the company, the people that work at the studio, and the offer summary along with an explanation of the job description and benefits. It’s a lot...a lot that Jennie still hasn’t fully processed, but she gets the gist. 

**We are pleased to welcome you to SuperGiant Games…**

It makes her swallow back the bile in her throat and run a hand through her hair. It’s so strange how everything you could want, could make you so fucking scared to actually go for it. And so Jennie ignores it, as much as the words embed themselves behind her eyelids; she tucks the letter back into the envelope and slides it back into her bag. 

“Not now,” she sighs. 

* * *

It goes on like that for weeks. Jennie goes to work, comes home, stares at the letter, and then turns on Netflix to drown her own thoughts out. 

In between days, she goes to Jisoo’s apartment and watches her wrestle furniture together as Seulgi reads off the instructions to her. They go out for lunch if the weather is okay and sometimes Lisa joins them and they all drive to the sea and sit out on the sand until it gets too late. 

The days are so mundane, but they’re also nice and so Jennie has no reason to want it to end. So she doesn’t tell anyone about the letter. It might be weird, but she has no way to tell her friends that the job that she’s been waiting for is finally giving her an offer, especially one that’s halfway across the world. 

It was only about a month after the letter had arrived, that anyone found out about it. Lisa is rummaging through her junk drawer, mumbling about some scissors that she threw in here so she can cut the tag off her pants. 

Her bangs are held up by a loose rubber band and Jennie watches her quietly, sipping at her water bottle until she sees Lisa walk back down the hallway. She doesn’t come back for another ten minutes, but when she does, she smiles and shows Jennie her pants, now tag-free. 

“You’re stupid,” Jennie snorts fondly. 

“Shut up,” she says, sticking her tongue out at her. 

They make room for each other on the couch, Lisa tugging the blanket back over her legs and queueing up Netflix. They were supposed to watch the last season of Dark together because they both loved the show, but after drinks and wings they had passed out and woke up three hours later. 

It was unspoken at this point that Lisa would spend the night and Jennie didn’t know why she liked that so much. But Lisa didn’t know how to make space for her body, so her toes were digging into the space underneath Jennie’s thighs, gathering warmth between the cushions and her legs. It was annoying but Jennie had given up complaining about it nearly six years ago, so it was whatever. Instead, she gathered Lisa’s feet in her hand and lifted them into her lap, wrapping her fingers around her feet. 

About three episodes in, Lisa asks for her lip balm because her lips are chapped and without thinking, Jennie tells her to look in her laptop bag. So she doesn’t pay the younger woman any mind as she rifles through her zippers and digs inside her pocket until that manilla envelope falls out and Lisa makes a noise of surprise. 

“What’s this, Jen?”

“It’s nothing,” she shakes her head, quickly and flings her arm out. “It’s nothing. Here, give it to me.”

And maybe it wasn’t such a smart thing to panic so quickly because Lisa did not give it back to her. Instead, she opened the envelope and pulled the letter inside right out. By the time Jennie was diving across the couch, screeching at her to give it back, Lisa was twisting her long body around, effectively blocking Jennie from taking it out of her hands. 

“Stop!” she shrieked. 

All Lisa did was laugh and when she threw the blanket over Jennie’s head, the older woman tried to at least punch her in the stomach, but by the time she wrestled the blanket off of her head, Lisa was already reading the bottom of the letter. 

“Fuck you,” Jennie groaned. She sat back against the couch and watched as Lisa glanced back at the top of the letter before she set it down and then turned her full body towards her. 

“Jennie…” she started off. 

“Don’t,” the other girl shook her head. “Don’t, I don’t….I don’t even know what the fuck that is….I don’t want to do it.” 

“What do you mean you don’t want to do it?!” Lisa yelped. “Are you out of your fucking mind?!”

She grabbed the letter off her lap and shook it in Jennie’s face. “This is SuperGiant Games! You _love_ this studio, they made your favorite game, Hades!”

“Lisa－”

“No,” the younger girl shakes her head and tosses the note to the floor before she scoots closer. Her knee digs into Jennie’s thigh and as much as it should hurt, Jennie has nothing to say. She can barely open her mouth when Lisa grabs her by the top of her shoulders and shakes her lightly. 

“You. Have. To. Take. This.”

 _Are you out of your mind?_ Jennie wants to say. It feels weird to hear that come out of Lisa’s mouth considering that the position is for a legal counsel that is willing to relocate to San Francisco. San Francisco is nearly thirteen hours away, over 5,600 miles from Seoul, and nearly seventeen hours behind Seoul and Jennie only knows this because she calculated it at her desk during her lunch break. 

“It’s...it’s in San Francisco,” she mumbles. 

Lisa smiles sadly, dragging her hands up the side of her neck and using her thumbs to rest them underneath her jaw. Jennie used to hate how big her hands were, how long her fingers were because Lisa said it was great for picking her nose, but now all she wants to do is tell Lisa to continue holding her head. She wants to tell her what to do because if Lisa were to tell her to stay, she would fucking stay－

“You have to go, Jennie.” 

It’s not exactly shocking, but it does startle her. It startles her so much that she recoils. She doesn’t flinch back very far because of Lisa’s grip on her neck, but she can tell the younger woman felt that, that she felt her reaction as much as Jennie did. 

“What?”

“Why in the world would you turn them down?” she scoffs. “Do you know how many people would kill for a position like that? Well, I mean, I don’t know,” she shrugs. “But I know that you wanted this. You’ve wanted this for a long time.”

Something is balancing on the precipice of her tongue, something that Jennie is afraid of telling Lisa and because she’s afraid, it feels like her stomach is falling outside of her body. It feels like that time she went on Splash Mountain with her cousin and puked as soon as she got off the ride. It feels like someone pushing you face first off the first step on a staircase and you know you’re going to tumble. 

“Think about it.” 

Lisa must take her silence as a signal for her to continue but Jennie doesn’t want her to do that. She actually wants her to stop talking because this is not how this conversation was supposed to go. Actually, this conversation wasn’t supposed to take place at all. Lisa was never supposed to find that letter－no one was supposed to even know about the letter. And when it was time, after the offer expired, Jennie would let everyone know and she would take them out to dinner, pay for drinks, and make up some excuse as to why it wasn’t the right choice. 

Because she’s supposed to be in Seoul. She’s supposed to be working her desk job and meeting Lisa for pizza on Fridays and spending the night at her apartment playing on her console until three in the morning. That’s how this was supposed to go. 

Not like this. And for some reason, Lisa making the decision for her to go hurts even more than the fact that she never asked Jennie what she wanted. She just assumed.

“You would be closer to your folks,” Lisa says and holds up her hand as she starts ticking things off. “You could go to Disneyland anytime you wanted; you love Disneyland. What about the Golden Gate Bridge?” she said excitedly, her eyes lighting up. “You would take so many pictures there and I heard Pier 39 is pretty cool to see too.”

_Stop talking._

Jennie wants her to stop talking because it feels like she’s pushing her, like she’s pushing her away. It doesn’t make sense how Lisa can be so nonchalant about this, how she can just immediately jump at the opportunity without thinking of the repercussions of a move like that. Every person, every friend that’s moved away from her, whether because of distance or personal situations, fell away from her. Distance hurts people, it ruins friendships, and it takes its toll. 

Jennie knows and for some reason, Lisa not bringing any of these things up doesn’t make sense. 

_Won’t it hurt you if I leave?_

Jennie doesn’t know why she doesn’t ask her that. Why she doesn’t ask Lisa whether or not it will hurt her to move across the world. Maybe she should or maybe she shouldn’t. All Lisa does is continue talking, continue droning on and on about the seafood in San Francisco and the cable cars that she’s only seen in television shows.

“Besides,” she grins even though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “We have email and Discord and phones that can actually make long-distance calls. We’ll keep in touch.”

Jennie hasn’t even left. She hasn’t even packed her bags or requested a change of address and Lisa is already herding her out of the door. 

It feels like she doesn’t care and when Jennie realizes that, she completely zones out of the conversation. 

* * *

**2022: 26 years old**

“You look a little thin,” her mother says disapprovingly, wiping her hands down with the dish towel before she folds it and puts it back on the counter.

“I come over for dinner every Sunday,” Jennie shakes her head. “I can’t be thin. I had to buy a new pair of pants because I couldn’t fit into them yesterday.” 

Her mother snorts and walks over to the stove, grabbing the black clay pot with her mitten hands and carefully sets it down in front of her daughter on the table. The yukgaejang bubbled viciously in the pot, the spicy red soup causing her forehead to wrinkle with perspiration. She sets down three sets of dishes and brings over a ladle to set in the pot, before grabbing the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge and setting it on the corner. 

“Come eat!” she hollers. 

One thing Jennie loved about seeing her family so often was the noise that they created. When she was in her apartment, all she could hear was the street traffic and the sound of the rice cooker as it hummed. When she was with her family, her mother would talk endlessly about the latest drama she was watching, the new nail salon that she wanted to check out over the weekend, or a book that her husband has recommended to her. Hyoyeon would talk about gossip in her Constitutional Law class or read a chapter out of a thick, glossy textbook that she had checked out from the public library while Jennie took notes for her. Her dad would just eat, occasionally adding in a comment or speaking up about something on the news, but for the most part he just listened to the women converse. 

It was nice to just talk about mundane things that Jennie couldn’t remember when she was in Seoul. 

Hyoyeon is the first one to the table, pushing her black, horn-rimmed glasses up her face and taking a seat opposite of her little sister as she pulls her bowl close.

“Ma, you made yukgaejang? I asked you to make this last weekend and you said no,” she frowned. 

“I didn’t feel like making it last weekend,” she shook her head. 

Jennie snorted and rolled her eyes when Hyoyeon stuck her tongue out at her. She looked so much younger than Jennie remembered too. She had dyed her hair blonde, something their mother had hated but had eventually grown to tolerate and her bangs were gone. Sometimes, Jennie wondered if they were sisters because she felt so distant from Hyoyeon, mostly because of the direction of their lives and the distance. It was always the distance. 

Their dad joined them just as their mother was switching the tv off and taking her seat. With it only being midday afternoon, sunlight filtered in through the blinds, coloring the table and the floor in champagne colored hues that made the yukgaejang glisten in the pot. Dad ladled soup into each of their bowls and then served himself last, but not before thanking his wife and kissing her cheek. 

Ma always pretended that she hated it, pushing him away with a huff, but Jennie could make out the redness that was filling out her neck. 

“What are you doing today?”

Jennie and Hyoyeon weren't sure who the question was directed at, so while Jennie blew gently on her spoon, Hyoyeon scooped some rice into her bowl and answered.

“Probably gonna go to the library. I have an exam on Wednesday to study for. I need to focus and I can’t do that with Ma arguing on the phone about _Crash Landing on You,_ ” she rolled her eyes.

Their mother scoffed and popped a piece of mushroom in her mouth, waving her daughter off. 

“It’s because you have that phone on every time you watch it,” Dad sighed. “How can you understand what’s happening if you don’t stop talking to watch it?”

“I know what’s going on!” her mother frowned and pushed some of her hair back. “Who else am I supposed to talk to if neither of you will watch it with me? Jangmi understands my frustrations.”

Jennie scooped a spoonful of the soup into her mouth, tasting the flavors on her tongue and picking out spices in her head like soy sauce, minced garlic, and hot pepper flakes. It was so good that she hardly spoke, instead choosing to alternate between dipping her rice in the red fluid or picking apart the brisket to chew. 

“How is Jisoo doing and your other friends?”

Jennie wiped her mouth and took a sip from her glass before she answered. “Jisoo’s good, Ma. Her and Seulgi are actually looking for a house, something bigger, I believe. I think they’re trying to start a family, at least Jisoo hinted at that.” 

It feels weird that it only felt just like yesterday when Jennie was standing off to the side at her engagement party and watching Jisoo glitter with happiness next to the Christmas decorations. It feels like a lifetime away, but it’s only been two years, and yet so much has already changed. 

“A family?” Hyoyeon asked, her eyes widening in surprise. “Like adoption?”

“Yeah,” Jennie nodded. “She said that they were thinking about it for awhile and decided to take some steps to start the process.”

“Oh, goodness,” her mother sighed and touched her forehead with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe Jisoo is wanting to become a mommy. You have to keep us updated so we can send them things if they need it.” 

“I will,” Jennie chuckled and turned back to her soup. Their conversation lapsed back into quiet conversation, Jennie mostly tuning it out unless they were talking to her.

It wasn’t until Hyoyeon nudged her leg underneath the table, raising her eyebrow, that she stopped eating. 

“What about Lisa? You guys still talk?”

“Yes, Hyo,” Jennie snorted. “We talk almost every day. She’s alright. She’s supposed to be going back to Buri Ram in a week or so to visit her family. Her mother has really missed her and she feels bad because she hasn’t been to see them.” 

Jennie remembers their conversation last night. When she was getting ready for bed and had slid underneath the covers, resting her phone on the pillow beside her head as Lisa talked for hours. They did that a lot; sometimes they would talk about their friends, about Seoul, San Francisco or whatever had happened to them during the day. It was nice, not only to still be able to hear Lisa, but to know that she was okay without physically seeing her. 

And sometimes if she fell asleep, Jennie stayed on the line to listen to her snore or she would mess with Lisa until she woke up and had to listen to her complain in different languages with sleep still laced in her voice. 

And even if they didn’t talk, they texted each other, sent the other postcards, or wrote handwritten notes on funny stationery paper and usually with Toy Story stickers littered on the paper. It was silly, but it helped. It helped immensely. 

“To be honest,” Hyoyeon said, breaking her out of her thoughts. “I was surprised that you even came to California. I thought you would never leave Korea because of Lisa.”

Her dad looks between the both of them and Hyoyeon doesn’t know, how could she? But it seemed almost explicitly clear how the dynamic between Lisa and Jennie had changed. Not just because of how they were back in Seoul, but because for the first time since she’d been in California, Jennie wanted to tell them that she didn’t want to be in San Francisco either. That it wasn’t her choice to come here, to live nearly over 5,000 miles from her best friends, but that decision was made a long time ago for her. 

“An opportunity came up,” she shrugged, scooping up some scallions with her spoon. “I couldn’t pass it up.” 

* * *

Lisa visits her in October, wearing a Yonsei University sweatshirt and dark, washed jeans that accentuate her long legs. They drink beer and share a plate of fettuccine bolognese and a small meat lasagna, their knees knocking against each other at the small table in the restaurant. Lisa talks about her job, showing pictures of her studio and some of the kids that she teaches dancing lessons to on Thursdays and Saturdays. 

They talk about the weather, a new book that Jennie had bought at a tiny little indie shop, and then they walk for almost two hours, aimlessly taking selfies and laughing at one too many bad jokes that Jennie doesn’t have the heart to groan at. 

It’s nice the way they settle into this new thing, how they talk like nothing’s ever happened between them even though so much has changed. When they make it back to Jennie’s apartment, Lisa takes her hand and pulls her over to the couch, mumbling that they should just ‘cuddle’ for the rest of the night and it takes everything inside of Jennie for her to not scream. 

* * *

In January, Jennie goes back to Seoul to stay for her birthday. Her friends gather to celebrate at a nice restaurant in Gangnam and the establishment is gorgeous, colored in different shades of beige, cream, and ivory with glittering chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and candles at each table. 

When they’re seated at a table next to the window, Lisa passes a menu to Jennie and says, “order whatever you want. I’m paying tonight.” 

Jisoo whistles underneath her breath and Nayeon looks shocked for a split second, her eyes widening before she schools her features back to normal. 

“You used to make us pay for your meals at the dining hall and you cut out coupons from the newspaper so you don’t pay full price at the supermarket. Are you sure you can afford _this_?” Nayeon gestures around the restaurant at the waiters with napkins over their arms, some carrying bottles of wine and the small live stage where a pianist is playing. 

“Yes, I can afford _this_ ,” Lisa hisses. “Shut the hell up before I tell the waiter that I want to split the check!”

Jisoo looks like she wants to laugh because she bites down her bottom lip, hiding her smile away as Nayeon rolls her eyes and huffs something that sounds like, _‘I still think you’re a fucking cheapskate.’_

Jennie ignores them, scanning through the menu as she tries to decide on what she wants. It’s only when Lisa leans over into her space, poking her thigh with her finger that she looks up. 

“Do you like it? The restaurant, I mean.” 

And for some reason Lisa looks nervous, like Jennie would think anything that she could do for her would never be enough. It’s weird to see that expression on her face because she’s never seen it before, so she sets her menu down on the table and reaches for Lisa’s hand, squeezing her hand in her own.

“I really like it,” she whispers. “I like whatever you do, you know that.” 

It’s a small smile, one that looks like it’s meant just for Jennie and it warms her insides more than any wine ever could. 

“Okay,” she smiles and it’s like little tendrils of rope slowly become untangled from her shoulders, like Jennie can see the tension visible snap from her body. 

“Okay,” Lisa says again. “I’m glad. I just want you to have a good birthday with us.”

“I will,” Jennie nods, squeezing her hand again. “I’m here with you.” 

It’s probably the most forward thing that she’s said to Lisa in two years, but it feels right. It feels like something she had to say to her because it’s true. She was going to enjoy it because she was here with her friends and most importantly, it was because Lisa was with her too. For some reason, her happiness felt like it was tied to her.

When the waiter comes back to their table to write down their orders, Lisa doesn’t let her hand go and if the girls notice, they don’t say anything about their hands underneath the table. 

* * *

In April, Lisa visits her during a rainy day, turning up at her door in a heavy parka and an umbrella that seems like it was mangled from the wind. They stay indoors because of the weather and play UNO, shouting at each other and kicking the other almost off the couch because Lisa wins and demands that Jennie cook her a victory meal.

They talk about Lisa’s mother and the possibility that she may stay a little bit longer in Buri Ram to help around the restaurant with her mother since she’s getting older.

When the skies finally clear, Lisa tugs them outside onto the sidewalk and they sit on the stoop in front of Jennie’s apartment, watching people and making up stories that have Jennie laughing so loud it’s almost embarrassing. 

* * *

In July, Jennie rents a car and she picks up Lisa at her apartment complex, shoving a map in her hands for the direction to a festival in Busan. 

It takes almost four hours, but they pass the time pulling over to take pictures of the scenery, eating snacks leaning up against the trunk at a rest stop, and singing songs from Lisa’s Spotify playlist as she tumbled into the backseat and took a nap. 

When they arrive in Busan, Lisa buys a seashell bracelet from a street vendor, haggling him down a few dollars until he relented and begrudgingly gave it over to Lisa. It was pretty and the younger woman had wasted no time before she spun around and clipped it onto Jennie’s wrist. 

The lights cast a glow on the street, creating a dizzying effect of colors and when Jennie looks up at her, Lisa only smiles and rubs the skin of the inside of her wrist. 

“For something to remember our trip,” she shrugs. 

They walk the rest of the way down the street and buy fish cake skewers, take pictures at the boardwalk, and sit on a bench underneath a busted lamplight with their heads touching. If it wasn’t for the noise of the crowd, Jennie would have probably fallen asleep with the way Lisa caressed the skin of her knee. 

* * *

In November, Jennie takes Lisa to see her parents in Anaheim and watches in amusement as her mother fusses over her as if she was her own daughter. It’s endearing to watch the way Lisa interacts with them, how she follows her mother around the kitchen like a lost puppy while she prepares food. The way she talks about the presidential election in Seoul and the protests that are going on at the moment when her father browses through the television channels. 

When Hyoyeon arrives home a little later, she pesters Lisa about her choice of clothing even though she’s wearing khaki pants and a nice cream colored sweater with a dress shirt underneath it. 

“You look like my professor,” Hyoyeon rolls her eyes and it would be funny if Lisa didn’t look embarrassed, barely managing to sputter out a quick, _‘what is that supposed to mean?!’_ And they both bicker like sisters, like her and Hyoyeon have never argued and it feels weird. But it's also nice to watch them talk condescendingly to each other while her mother occasionally chimes in to tell them to be quiet. 

They hardly get any time to be alone, just the two of them, but Lisa doesn’t seem to mind, what with being too busy helping her mom fold the laundry or sweep the driveway, or clean the fan blades as they open the windows. 

When Jennie falls asleep on the couch, her back slumped and her neck bent at an odd angle, Lisa throws a blanket over her and crawls over to lay across her lap, falling asleep not a minute later. 

* * *

In December, they video chat over FaceTime and Lisa wipes her camera with the edge of her sweatshirt, smudging the lens a bit, until she pulls back and waves at Jennie like a dork. It’s so endearing that Jennie only huffs and waves back. 

It’s 3:55 pm in Seoul and nearly eleven o ‘clock at night in San Francisco as Jennie tries not to yawn into her fist. 

“I told you that if you were too tired, we could always talk earlier,” Lisa complains. 

She has a dark flannel shirt on over a grey t-shirt and if it wasn’t for the ketchup stains on her neckline, Jennie would think that she was getting ready to leave. That and the fact that when she raises her arm to steady the webcam, Jennie can see a hole in her armpit stitching. 

“M’not tired,” Jennie mumbles. The curtains are already drawn and despite the lamp light that she has switched on at her desk, she can barely see herself in her camera. 

She rests her head on her pillow and tucks her arm underneath it, sighing quietly when Lisa sits back and smiles at her. 

She looks a bit tired too and Jennie wants to ask her what’s wrong, if she’s getting enough sleep lately, but Lisa interrupts her before she can even gather the words into sentences. 

“What’d you do today?”

“Not much,” Jennie mumbles. “I had to work, went to lunch with some friends, and then I went grocery shopping. Pretty boring day,” she snorts. 

Lisa folds her arm in front of her and rests her chin on them, blinking at Jennie slowly until she chuckles. “Doesn’t sound particularly boring. It sounds like you were pretty busy.” 

“I wasn’t,” she rolls her eyes. “Not really. What about you? What’d you do today?” 

“Went shopping with Jisoo. She’s planning her annual Christmas party and wanted to get a Santa ice sculpture but luckily I talked her out of it and she settled for snowflake lights.” 

Jennie can’t stop the laugh coming out of her mouth and even though she is tired, she settles into her pillow and tells Lisa to explain everything to her.

So Lisa talks about Seulgi’s new hair color that’s blonde; she tells Jennie about the mouse that fell out of their Christmas tree when they unwounded the rope around the branches; she talks about the new puppy that Jisoo and Seulgi want to buy and the renovation that she wants to do to her kitchen so she can put a dining table in. 

“You want a dining table in your kitchen? So adult-like of you,” Jennie smiles. “Remember when you used to eat on your bed all the time?”

“It was comfortable!” Lisa gasps. “Don’t talk about my room service like that.”

“Room service!” Jennie shrieked with laughter. “You’re so gross, you know that?” Jennie said between fits of laughter. She tried to catch her breath and wipe her eyes at the same time, but then Lisa started laughing and neither of them could stop. 

They didn’t stop talking until it was nearly two o’clock in the morning and Jennie could barely keep her eyes open. And when Lisa whispered to her that she should go to sleep, neither of them said anything about the fact that it would be Jennie’s 27th birthday in two weeks. 

* * *

**February 2023: 27 years old**

“It’s not serious,” Jisoo murmurs. 

They’re sitting on the floor in Jisoo’s living room, watching Seulgi try to put together a crib disastrously after she chucked the manual back into the box. There are pieces spread out on the floor and screws that should probably be in the crib, still in the little plastic bag that came with the box. 

Jennie closes the Instagram app and sets her phone down in her lap. She doesn’t have to say it, but both of them know what she’s referring to. Jennie just wishes she wasn’t so obvious about it. 

“It’s alright,” she shrugs. And it should be. Lisa was entitled to do whatever she wanted. Why would that change considering where their lives had taken them? It was silly to think that Lisa would wait, that she wouldn’t even look at another person for the past four years. It’s stupid and Jennie can’t figure out if she’s more upset at Lisa or herself. 

“No, seriously,” Jisoo says and she uncrosses her legs and stretches them out in front of herself. “It’s not. I’ve only seen them go out and get drinks together. They might hold hands and hugs, but it really isn’t that serious.”

“How do you know that?” Jennie snorts. She leans her head back to rest it on the couch and looks up at the ceiling fan as the blades spin. 

“I try to insert myself into every outing Lisa brings up under the guise of a double date,” she says nonchalantly. 

Jennie rolls her head to the side and stares at Jisoo as she continues watching her wife. Seulgi drops the screwdriver as she tries to screw the wheels in on the bottom and Jisoo laughs. When she looks back at Jennie, she wiggles her eyebrows. 

“Don’t do that,” Jennie chuckles sadly. “You don’t need to spy on them. Let her do what she wants.” 

“No, I can tell how much it bothers you and I don’t want you to be upset about it when it’s really nothing.” 

“I’m not upset, Soo.”

Even as she says it, neither of them believe it and Jennie feels pathetic. She feels stupid for letting it get to this point. She feels stupid for clinging to some dumb agreement that they made when they could barely see straight. She feels stupid for thinking that somehow either of them wouldn’t ever entertain the possibility of being with someone else when they never even defined what the fuck was going on between them. 

When Seulgi makes a noise of frustration, Jisoo finally moves from her spot on the floor and crawls over to her side, brushing her hair off of her forehead and kisses her gently. 

“Can we please just look at the instructions now?”

“Fine,” Seulgi grumbles and reaches for the box, pulling the folded manual out and spreading it across her lap. 

Jennie watches them for a few more minutes before she grabs her phone and opens up Instagram again. 

* * *

**August 2023: 27 years old**

Lisa stands outside of Jennie’s apartment for a long time. Her feet feel numb from how long she’s been standing or maybe it’s just her imagination playing tricks on her because she’s so fucking nervous. 

Tzuyu told her not to go to San Francisco, that it wasn’t a good idea but Lisa was undeterred. Not after her semi-awkward breakup and then definitely not after Jisoo grew mum about Jennie when Lisa started asking what she was doing. So she opened up Instagram, scrolled through a few pictures and realized what some of the silence was from. 

He was attractive and tall and had shaggy hair that almost touched his shoulders. Jisoo said his name was Minhyuk and that he worked in an advertising company in Los Angeles, apparently meeting Jennie through a mutual friend. 

And maybe she shouldn’t have come even though she’s had this ticket for weeks. Maybe she should have bailed and come up with some kind of excuse like going back to Buri Ram or needing to stay behind for work. But it was too late for that and staring at the numbers plated in white paint across the door seemed like both a taunt and a joke. 

She raised her hand to knock at the door but dropped it at the last second, pinching the bridge of her nose with her fingers before sighing. 

“Fuck,” she muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” 

She looked back up at her door and tightened her hand on the strap of her bag. She tapped her fingers against the seam of her pants and raised her hand again, this time to ring the buzzer. 

“Do it,” she told herself. “Just fucking do it.” 

Before she could convince herself to turn around and look for the next flight back to Seoul, she pressed down on the buzzer and listened to it ring for a long second. When she pulled her finger away, it felt like someone had doused her in ice cold water, but when the door swung open, she bit down on the inside of her cheek so she didn’t fucking scream. 

Thankfully, Jennie answered the door and the way her face split into a smile was enough for Lisa to calm down and gather her convoluted thoughts inside of her skull. She smelled like pumpkin and nutmeg when she pulled Lisa in and gave her a hug. And even though she told herself not to, Lisa couldn’t help wrapping her arms around her and pressing her nose into her hair. 

It was soft and thick, with a hint of flour clinging to her, but too soon Jennie pulled back and held Lisa at arm’s length. She didn’t say anything for a minute, choosing instead to analyze Lisa, her eyes raking over her face and down the front of her shirt before she looked back into her eyes. 

Lisa hoped she didn’t see the stain around her eyes or the way her brow was sweating from profusely talking herself up on the cab ride over.

“Hi,” Jennie murmured. She squeezed her elbows and then stepped back, gesturing for Lisa to follow her inside. “Come in, come in. You want something to drink? I’m just baking something right now.” 

Lisa toed her sneakers off and bent down to set them next to a pair of sandals on the rack. She tried not to look at the boots that were placed neatly on the end, nearly three sizes larger than both of their shoes. 

Her apartment smelled good and the further she walked into the room, the stronger the smell became. She turns around the corner and looks into the kitchen, watching Jennie set a timer and push some of her hair off of her forehead. 

"What are you making?” 

“Pumpkin cupcakes. I’m gonna put a cream cheese frosting on them when they’re done.” There’s spices all over the counter: a bag of brown sugar, a cup of baking soda, and various bottles of cinnamon, nutmeg, and oil. 

Lisa wants to ask her if it’s okay if she stays here tonight, but Jennie walks around the counter and grabs her wrist, pulling her down the hallway. “You can put your things in my room. And if you want to take a shower or anything, I left stuff out in the bathroom for you.”

She pushes her door open and Lisa half expects someone to be laying across the sheets and it’s silly how disappointed and elated she feels when no one is there. Part of her just wants to get this over with. However, another part of her hopes that he never comes over, she hopes that she never sees Minhyuk. 

Lisa wishes she could tell Jennie that. She wishes that she could pull her close and whisper it into her ear, almost like they used to do when they were keeping secrets from Jisoo. 

When Jennie grabs her bag and lifts it onto the bed, she unzips the top and gestures at Lisa to open the drawer behind her. There are an assortment of t-shirts that belong to Jennie and she pushes them to the side, making space as her friend hands her things over. 

They move in relative silence, but every now and then, Jennie might toss a t-shirt at her face or jab her in the side and they’ll laugh at each other like there’s not a weight pressing down all the oxygen in Lisa’s body. 

* * *

Lisa stays for two weeks, the customary amount of time they usually visit each other. At first, her and Jennie lounge around the apartment, watching shows on HBO or making pasta that gets stuck to the bottom of the pan. They paint each other’s nails and then drink beer outside on her stoop.

Lisa doesn’t know why but at some point, she becomes afraid of leaving the apartment. Inside this little unit, they have each other and it’s okay to pretend that it’s just them. Inside the living room, they can lay all over each other and hug like they used to before the distance separated them. 

Jennie doesn’t bring up Minhyuk and Lisa knows why, she knows it so instinctively that it makes her seethe with a bite of jealousy and mostly guilt. Jennie should be able to be happy. Jennie should be able to tell her anything and talk about whoever the fuck she wants to talk about. But Lisa is upset and as much as she tries not to show it, Jennie is the only person who can read her entire body without talking. 

So she tries to smile more, she tries to enjoy the small amount of time they have together. But leaving the apartment makes her scared that they’ll run into Minhyuk. It makes her feel like they’ll bump into him at the supermarket and then everything will change.

It’s a ridiculous thought but it hangs around Lisa’s head the entire trip. It isn’t until Lisa is in the bathroom brushing her teeth for the night, when she opens the medicine cabinet and a frame clatters noisily to the ground. She sets her toothbrush down and picks it up, examining the frame for damage and sighs when she sees none. 

It’s a small photo but it’s one of Jennie with Minhyuk. They’re sitting outside, the sun shining down on both of them as Jennie lays across his lap. She looks so happy that her eyes are even smiling and her mouth is curved upward in the way that makes her teeth look like a bunny. Lisa runs her finger over the picture, dragging her thumb over the image before she sets it down on the counter. 

When she thinks about why Jennie would shove this photo in the cabinet, it isn’t until she’s rinsing her mouth out that it dawns on her. 

_She doesn’t want you to see how happy she is._

_She doesn’t want you to see how happy she is without you._

Lisa feels something nasty unfurl in her stomach and before she can stop herself, she’s leaning over the sink and throwing up. 

* * *

“Can I tell you something?”

“You can tell me anything.” 

Lisa traces the lines inside of her wrist, looking down at the patterns that she can see in her skin. It’s late, almost ten, but Jennie stays up next to her, her head leaning against her shoulder as they stare at the TV. Neither of them are watching it－at least Lisa doesn’t think Jennie is－ but that’s besides the point. 

“Do you remember Jisoo’s engagement party? That night we stood outside drunk?”

Jennie doesn’t answer for a second but her pause is enough for Lisa to know that she remembers. She’s never forgotten about that night. 

“I do,” she finally says quietly. “Yeah, I do.”

“Me too,” Lisa swallows. 

The game show host pulls another card out of his pocket, showing it to the audience as they erupt into applause.

“I’m sorry,” Lisa says. “I’m sorry that I’m bringing this up now...you know, when you’ve already got your own thing going on.” She waves her hand like that gesture will be enough to account for everything and maybe it will. 

“You don’t have to apologize, Lisa. I’m the one that suggested it, remember?”

Lisa remembers. She remembers thinking over those words as Jennie slurred them out in the air. She remembers looking at her hair as it fell over her shoulders and the way her knees were shaking because it was so cold out. She remembers wanting to tell Jennie that they should just get married right now, that they had enough love between the both of them to make it work. 

“I’m just－” she starts. “I’m just sorry that I never told you.”

Jennie pulls away, looking over at Lisa with her eyebrows furrowed in concern. “What are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t mean anything now,” Lisa says and she shakes her head. “But just listen, okay? Don’t say anything...okay?”

Jennie doesn’t answer her but Lisa takes that as a signal for her to continue. She folds her legs closed and runs a hand through her hair. The game show host spins around and as he does, lights in different colors begin to flash on and off. 

“I never told you that I liked you and I should have. It seems－” she chuckles sadly and shakes her head again. “It seems so fucking stupid to say this but I’m just sorry for everything. When we made that promise to each other, I was scared because I did like you but I didn’t know how to tell you. Then when that offer came for you to go to California, I tried to push it away. I thought that if I hid it well enough that I would get over you and you would be happier leaving－that’s why I pushed you. I pushed you to go so I could push you away from me.”

Lisa doesn’t even realize that her voice is wavering and that her fingers are shaking. “I thought if you left then it would be easier, but the feelings only grew. Every time we saw each other, I thought of how I would finally tell you and I just－” she chokes, biting her lip. “I just _couldn’t._ ”

“I tried to see people, I tried to do anything to get it to stop from eating out the inside of my heart, but no matter who I fucking looked at or talked to, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It ate at me every night and every night I kept telling myself to just call you and tell you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that I’m telling you this shit right now but I need to. I need you to know that I do love you but that it’s okay for you to be in love too, even if it’s not with me. You deserve to be happy, you deserve whatever you want.” 

And when Lisa starts crying, it feels like an insult, mostly to herself because she’s such a fucking coward. It was always going to end like this, wasn’t it? It was always going to end up with them making mistakes, with the both of them missing each other by miles. Lisa rubs her eyes, pressing the heel of her hand into her eyes to stop the tears. 

She only hears Jennie shift suddenly before she hears footsteps and when she opens her eyes, she watches as Jennie walks down the hall, shutting the door behind herself.

* * *

Lisa leaves the next day. She turns her phone off and fits a dark pair of sunglasses over her eyes. 

Jennie doesn’t come out of her room. 

* * *

Jisoo lets her sleep on the couch. She strokes Lisa’s hair and offers her some noodles but she can barely eat. It feels like someone took a spoon and scraped out everything that was inside of her. It feels like someone hollowed out all of the parts that were supposed to make her feel something. 

* * *

When she’s at the supermarket, Jisoo loads a crate of water into the cart and then stops to dig her cellphone out of her bag. It’s a text message with an image attached. Even though Lisa doesn’t want to pry, she looks over Jisoo’s shoulder anyway, staring at the contact with Jennie’s name.

It’s her hand. Lisa remembers her fingers and her perfectly manicured nails. It’s the ring that stops her short. It’s the sizable ring with a diamond attached to it that makes her step back. 

Lisa grabs a hold of the shopping cart and grips it until her knuckles turn white. She doesn’t say anything else for the rest of the trip. 

* * *

**October 2023: 27 years old**

The knock at the door startles her but only because it’s not expected. She turns the faucet off and sets the plate in her hands inside the drying rack, wiping her hands off on her pants. Her mother always told her that it ruined her jeans when she did that, but Lisa never listened to her.

The knock comes at her door again and Lisa hurries through the foyer, checking her hair in the mirror and making sure she still doesn’t have rice stuck between her teeth. When she’s good, she unlocks the door and pulls it open. 

It’s Jennie. 

Lisa is surprised to see her considering their messages have been few and far between. She took it as a sign that Jennie needed space and that was expected. It was weird for her to just tell her that and expect things to go back to normal. But she can’t deny how much the blood rushing through her ears right now isn’t comforting in the slightest.

It feels like she can take a deep breath again.

“Hi...” she says hesitantly. 

Jennie smiles at her, albeit it seems more guarded than anything, but she lifts her hand up and waves anyway.

“I’m so sorry that I just showed up here like that－so last minute and all, especially without warning you.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Lisa shakes her head. She swallows and nervously tightens her hand around the door knob. Part of her wishes that she could just close the door, but it’s not fair. It’s not fair to either of them. 

“It’s okay,” she says again and for some reason it feels like she’s telling it to both of them. “You can come in.” 

She moves to the side and waits for Jennie to step through before she shuts the door and locks it. When they walk into the living room, Lisa wrings her hands in front of herself and patiently thinks of something to say. They’ve never been like this before: doing this thing where they move around each other but don’t say anything. Or maybe that’s what their entire friendship has been like between them and they just didn’t know it. 

Jennie sets her purse down on the counter and takes a seat at the island. In some other dimension, Lisa would tease her because her feet can’t touch the floor and maybe in some other dimension, Jennie would shove her away and tell her to shut up. There are so many of these dimensions that Lisa wishes were real. 

“What are you doing here?”

It’s the only thing that she can think of to say but it sounds wrong coming out of her mouth. Jennie doesn’t react though. She only looks down at the granite countertop and traces lines with her fingers, following a pattern that has no ending to it. 

“I wanted to see you.” 

“You didn’t want to see me two months ago.” And maybe it’s not fair but Lisa remembers how she stood outside her bedroom door and thought about all the different ways she could have apologized to her. But how do you apologize for something that feels right to you?

“And you didn’t want to tell me how you really felt four years ago.” 

If they’re going to fight, Lisa thinks that she deserves it. Maybe it’s time they finally did this to each other－ that thing where you hurt one another so deeply that it’s impossible to mend it better. Maybe it’s best that they do this now so they can avoid everything that they spent so long ignoring. 

“Did you come all the way to Korea to rub that in my face? You should have saved yourself the trip.” 

Jennie scoffs and shakes her head. She looks older like this, like she’s tired of hearing it or tired of thinking about it coming out of Lisa’s mouth. Either way, it makes Lisa uncomfortable. It makes her uncomfortable because she feels like this is how a friendship falls apart. 

“I didn’t come all the way here for that－”

“Then what did you come here for? Huh?!” Lisa doesn’t mean to raise her voice, but when she becomes scared, when she feels nervous, it’s easy for her to try to gain her footing by lashing out. It’s a terrible trait, but it’s the only way she knows how to gather some kind of ground in a situation. 

“Don’t you fucking yell at me! Don’t you _dare!_ ”

They’ve never raised their voices at each other, at least not like this. This is how a friendship falls apart. 

“I can do whatever the hell I want! Tell me, no seriously, tell me why the fuck you came here!”

“I came here to see you! I told you that!”

“You want to see me now?! Where were you all this time?”

Jennie licks her lips and stares at her and maybe it’s not fair. It’s not fair that they keep putting themselves in this situation when they know that the only way this will end is if things implode. This is how a friendship falls apart. 

“Where was _I_? Where the fuck where you?! I waited for you, Lisa! I _waited_ for you and you _knew_ that I was waiting for you!”

“Waiting for what?!”

“Waiting for you to tell me the truth!” Jennie shouts. “Waiting for you to tell me how you really felt! But you _kept_ that from me! You kept that away from me for years and that’s not right!”

“They’re my feelings!” and Lisa feels her lips tremble. She feels the hair on her neck stand up and she feels her face grow hot. Lisa's never been good at arguing because it always ends up with her crying. This is how a friendship falls apart. 

“They’re your feelings but they were meant for me,” Jennie stresses. “If you would have told me－”

“If you had felt the same way, why did you wait, huh? If you knew how I felt and if you knew the way you felt, why did you wait, Jennie?”

Maybe they’re just two scared people. Maybe this is how people act when they’re afraid of each other. Because Lisa is afraid of Jennie. She’s afraid of her smile and the way she looks when she sleeps. She’s afraid of the curve of her mouth and the dip of her collarbone. She’s afraid of her hands and the way she holds herself up. She’s afraid of everything that could break if they were to hurt each other just enough. 

Neither of them say anything but Lisa feels exhausted. She feels tired all of a sudden and it shouldn’t be like that. She shouldn’t have to feel like this when all she wanted was for the both of them to be happy, whether it was with each other or not. This is how a friendship falls apart. 

And maybe she should tell Jennie that she’s happy for her, that she’s happy that she’s found someone who isn’t anything like Lisa. She should tell her that she looks pretty when she found that picture of the two of them in the bathroom. She should tell her that no matter what, she can put all this aside and they can start over again. Lisa would if that’s what would make Jennie happy. 

"I’m not－”

“Tell me that you love me.” 

“What?”

Jennie licks her lips and stands up wringing her fingers in front of herself and stares at Lisa. “Tell me that you love me.” 

“No,” Lisa shakes her head. 

“Yes, tell me that you love me.”

“Why?”

“Because if you tell me, I won’t do it. If you tell me that you love me right now, I won’t stop you. I won’t walk away again.” 

Lisa stares at the ring on her finger and she looks at the bones in her hand and she swallows audibly. Sometimes, if she thinks about something too hard, the room will start to spin, but the room doesn’t spin this time. Instead, everything tilts.

Jennie takes her hand and messes with the ring on her finger. She stares down at the diamond in the center, the same one that Lisa remembers seeing on Jisoo’s phone. And it should make her chest seize up, but instead she takes a deep breath as she watches Jennie pull it off. 

“You’re happy with him,” Lisa croaks. “I saw it－I saw you too. I _know_ you’re happy with him.” 

“How do you know what makes me happy?” she chuckles sadly. “How do you know anything about me when you don’t even fucking ask me?”

When Lisa wasn’t rubbing her own feelings in Jennie’s face, it never occurred to her that she never did think of how Jennie might have felt. Jennie never brought up Minhyuk or their relationship and Lisa never asked because she assumed she was happy. Every time Lisa thought she knew something, she attributed it to what she was seeing. If Jennie was smiling, everything was okay. If Jennie was posting more photos, everything was okay. If Jennie was bringing him to meet her parents, everything was okay. If Jennie was getting married, then everything was okay. 

“You make me happy,” Jennie says quietly. She sets the ring down on the counter and it feels like Lisa is seeing double. “You make me happy and you didn’t even stop to think about it.” 

She walks over to her and if she takes her hand, Lisa barely registers it because her ears are ringing. Her ears are ringing and when she looks down at Jennie’s hand, she sees the impression of where the ring should be. 

“You have made me happy ever since I met you,” Jennie whispers. “You have always made me happy and I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you that－ I’m sorry that it had to come up to the surface like this.” 

“I’m sorry too, for everything.”

Jennie tangles their fingers together and that piece inside of Lisa’s heart feels like it can finally stitch itself back up again. Her skin is warm and her hands are smooth. Lisa strokes her thumb across the skin and feels her throat constrict. 

“I just want you to be happy with whatever you want to do.”

Lisa doesn’t want to cry but she can’t get a hold of herself. It feels like her face is going to split in two if Jennie walks out that door. But it also feels like her face is going to split into two if Jennie doesn’t.

“I want to be happy with you,” she whispers. “I want to be happy with you, right now. I want you to make good on your promise four years ago.” 

Lisa chokes out a laugh but it’s really more of a sob. She throws her arm over her face to cover her eyes, but Jennie is tired of hiding. She pulls her arm down and grabs the back of her neck, angling her head down so Lisa can push her face into her neck. 

Lisa doesn’t know how long she stands there crying into Jennie’s neck, but it feels cathartic, almost like she’s taking a hallucinogenic for the first time. 

And when lips press into the side of her neck, following a path up her jaw and over her ears, she pulls back and touches their foreheads together. 

“How old are you?” Lisa sniffles.

She can feel snot on her upper lip and she can barely see out of her eyes because they feel so fucking puffy, but she can feel the way that Jennie smiles against her cheek. She can feel the way her lips move as she says into her skin. 

“I’m 27. How old are you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed this, ermita: )  
> thank you so much for requesting a story and I'm so sorry for my long absence. i hope you guys stay safe and take care of yourselves. i love you all so much ❤️


	6. When we get older

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jennie gets a text message. That’s how she finds out Lisa is breaking up with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pairing: jennie/lisa
> 
> tags: romance, comedy, high school au, time jump, teenage drama, airhead!jennie, getting back together
> 
> request for: random15243

****

**2019**

Jennie gets a text message. That’s how she finds out Lisa is breaking up with her. 

It should be slightly ironic considering that Jennie sent her a selfie nearly a year ago with the simple text of, _‘hi’_ attached to it and Lisa asked her to be her girlfriend that same day. It was probably the pigtails, at least, that’s what Jennie thought at the time. She was going through a phase in junior year and Chaeyoung had said that her hair was long enough for her to do pigtails and it just kind of _stuck._

Lisa was fucking _obsessed_ with them. She tugged on them when they were doing stretches in the middle of the court during gym class. She would play with them as they rode the bus back to the neighborhood and walked to the convenience store. She would take ridiculous selfies draping Jennie’s hair over her forehead or under her nose and then post it on Snapchat for everyone to see. 

It was cute. 

It was Lisa’s thing. Which is why it didn’t make sense for Lisa to break up with her in the middle of the day on Thursday while she was having lunch with her dad. 

When she looks at the text message, the chopsticks in her hand clatter noisily back into her bowl and her dad looks up from where he’s ladling more broth into his bowl to frown at his daughter. 

“No phones at the dinner table, Jennie.”

“But, dad－”

He shakes his head and reaches over to grab the salt shaker, lightly adding some to his soup. 

“It can wait until after you finish eating.”

He looks over the top of his glasses as he says it and whenever he does that, his forehead wrinkles up. When Jennie was little, she used to try to smooth them out with her thumb for hours and when it wouldn’t work, she would usually break into tears. 

She wonders idly if that would work now－if she could just break into tears and wail about how important it was that she answer this text. 

“Fine,” she sighs. Jennie stares down at her lap, looking mournfully at her phone, before she picks it up and sets it face down on the table. 

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I’m sure whatever it is, they’ll still be there when you’re done.”

Jennie frowns at her dad and moves to pick her chopsticks back up. The samgyetang is actually good－it’s one of her favorite dishes. But as she moves a piece of the chicken around in the soup, watching it float on top of the scallions, she doesn’t even feel hungry anymore. 

Her dad just doesn’t _understand_. He’s probably never been dumped in the middle of the day over text. If he was, he would probably be able to sympathize with Jennie more. 

Her dad glances over at her again and he gets that worried little furrow in his eyebrows. Usually, if he does that twice, he’ll start to ask questions, so Jennie sucks in all her teenage angst and picks apart a piece of the chicken, lifting it up to her mouth. 

Why would Lisa even break up with her anyway? 

It’s not like they were having problems or anything, right? They met up every morning at the bus stop and Lisa always gave her the right earbud of her iPod and let Jennie pick the song that they would listen to on the ride to school. At lunch, they even went outside and sat underneath the Sycamore trees in the courtyard because it was so shady there and a perfect spot to make out. Just last weekend, Lisa even paid Jisoo to do Jennie’s chemistry homework for her and she was ridiculously happy when Jennie got full marks.

It just doesn’t make sense.

And her face must convey these convoluted emotions inside of her head because her dad sighs again and finally sets down his spoon, looking across the table at Jennie with a pointed look. 

“Just spit it out,” he says. “Come on, what’s got you thinking so hard?”

“I think Lisa is breaking up with me,” she frowns. It feels weird to say it out loud because in her head, she can pretend that the text was probably a fluke. But when her mouth forms around the words, it suddenly makes everything seem real. 

Her dad scoffs, waving a hand at Jennie and shakes his head. “That girl is crazy about you. She follows you around like a puppy. It’s actually sad.” 

“But, dad, that’s why I was looking at my phone. Lisa sent me a message that she wanted to break up.” 

Was she trying to play some kind of prank on her? You didn’t just simply break up with Jennie Kim, especially over text message, and _especially_ while she was eating her favorite dish. You also didn’t break up with Jennie Kim because she had the biggest house on the street and all the latest PS5 games because her dad was good friends with some of the game developers at Sony. 

Lisa must be off her fucking medication. Did she take medication? Jennie remembers sleeping over at her house one night and her mom told her to take her pills or else she would never be able go to sleep. But then they just made out underneath the blankets until Jennie got dizzy and passed out on her chest. 

Huh. 

But that’s besides the point because you don’t just break up with Jennie Kim! That’s not how this works. 

“Let me see the message,” her dad says, gesturing to her phone. And usually Jennie would screech at her dad that her phone was _private_ and she had pictures of herself that were only meant for her Snapchat followers to see, but she unlocked her phone anyway and handed it over.

He adjusts his glasses on his face and scrolls up, pausing to read the message that Lisa had sent nearly ten minutes ago. When he finishes, he scrolls down and then back up, and then sets her phone down carefully next to his bowl. 

Jennie bites her bottom lip and her nervousness must worry her father because he stares at her for a long second and then folds his hands in front of himself. 

“Do you want me to talk to her parents?”

“Dad!” Jennie groans. Of all of the things that he could suggest, why did talking to her parents have to be one of them?! Besides what could her parents do anyway? Ask Lisa why she broke up with Jennie over text and then have her painstakingly explain why she even wanted to break up to her _face?_

Fuck that. 

“Dad,” she sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I don’t want you to talk to her parents. That’s so embarrassing,” she huffs. 

“Well, what do you want me to do, Jennie?”

She worries her bottom lip between her teeth stares down at the chicken in her bowl. It’s gone cold now and besides that text, there’s probably nothing worse than samgyetang going cold. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she murmurs. “I’ll figure it out.” 

“Are you sure?”

He hands her phone back over to her and Jennie lays it face down again. Without answering him, Jennie nods and picks her chopsticks back up. They shake between her fingers and she murmurs a quiet, _‘thank you for the food, dad,’_ but doesn’t say anything else. 

* * *

“She _broke up_ with you?!”

Chaeyoung sounds just as shocked as Jennie expected her to be, so it feels comforting that she’s not the only one that’s been blindsided by this. After dinner, Jennie would usually clean off the table and wash the dishes, but her father must have felt incredibly upset for her, so he waved Jennie off and told her that it was fine if she went up to her bedroom. 

Maybe there were perks to being dumped. 

But Jennie would never say that out loud. So she kissed her dad’s cheek and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge before running upstairs. 

She still hadn’t opened Lisa’s message and part of her doesn’t know if she’ll ever have the nerve to actually do it. That red ‘1’ notification glares back at her every time she looks at her home screen and it’s so annoying that Jennie turns the brightness all the way down on her phone but it’s _still_ there.

“Why would Lisa break up with you? Sounds dumb, if you ask me.” 

_It is dumb,_ Jennie wants to say. Two days ago, Lisa fell asleep in her lap and she didn’t even get mad when Jennie took a photo of her and posted it to Instagram. That seems like a lifetime ago, but it also seems like things were just fine. Really, none of it makes sense. 

“I don’t know,” she sighs. “I’m so confused.” Her history textbook is open on her desk and she’s supposed to read through two chapters for tomorrow’s group discussion but she can’t even concentrate on the words on the page. Who the fuck is Napoleon Bonaparte and what does this even have to do with Korean History? Isn’t he German...or wait, was he British? 

Jennie didn’t know; she hated school. 

If Lisa wasn’t being weird and sending her break up texts at dinner time, she could have taken a photo of it and asked Lisa to explain it to her because she was good at history, surprisingly. But she can’t because _technically_ they’re exes now. 

Even just rolling the word ‘exes’ around in her mouth makes her skin crawl. 

Jennie lets out a heavy sigh again. 

“I could ask her for you?” Chaeyoung suggests. She hears shuffling on the other end of the line and then the sound of a door opening and closing.

Chaeyoung has a little sister that she shares a room with and Chloe can be pretty annoying. Sometimes she’ll listen to what they’re talking about and run to tell their mom or she’ll jump on the bed and scream at the top of their lungs while Jennie is trying to do Chaeyoung’s makeup before school. One time, she peed on herself in her bed and threw the blanket at Chaeyoung while she was sleeping and Jennie had to talk her down from a panic attack. 

Jennie is glad that she’s an only child. She likes having all of her dad’s attention and she wouldn’t be able to live with a little sister who had the same personality as her－or worse－a little brother that liked to pick his nose or left the toilet seat up whenever he went to the bathroom. 

“You don’t think it would be weird?” 

“Nah,” Chaeyoung says. “I’ll be discreet about it. I’ll just ask her tomorrow during anatomy and physiology. She won’t suspect a thing, chill.” 

Jennie wants to believe Chaeyoung, she does, but Chaeyoung is good friends with both of them. It feels weird but some part of her thinks that Lisa might tell her something truly horribly, like Jennie eats with her fingers sometimes or that she has this twitch in her fingers if she plays Just Dance too long. And yeah she does eat with her fingers but only if she’s eating Cheetos because she loves sucking the seasoning off of her fingers and Just Dance is a very physically demanding game that requires a unique blend of athleticism and skill. 

So Jennie is a bit nervous that something that Lisa might say, whatever it is that pushed her to ask for a break up, might also push Chaeyoung away from her. Chaeyoung is her closest friend and she’s only known her because they met through Lisa during the homecoming game. Chaeyoung was a percussionist and her band uniform looked really cute and Jennie thought she wanted to be friends, so Lisa introduced them. 

If she loses Chaeyoung too, she can never show her face at school again. She just might have to ask her dad to transfer her to another school, somewhere in a neighboring city, or better yet－a boarding school, maybe in France. 

“Just promise－” she starts and takes a deep breath. “Promise me that we’ll still be friends no matter what, okay?” 

There’s a pause on the other line and before Jennie can ask what’s wrong, Chaeyoung giggles into the receiver. 

“This isn’t _funny!_ ” Jennie pouts. “I’m serious! You’re my best friend and I still need you in my life, Chae.” 

“I’ll still be your best friend,” she laughs and if Jennie could see her now, she’d probably be rolling her eyes right this second. 

“I’m not gonna stop talking to you just because you and Lisa aren’t together anymore. You’re my friend too. It’ll just be awkward now because we all can’t hang out together. Kind of like a divorce.” 

Jennie snorts and pulls out her pencil case, unzipping the pouch and pulling out her favorite multi-colored pen. 

“My parents are divorced, Chae. And I haven’t seen my mom since I was seven. I think she started a new family in the U.S.” 

“So does that mean I have to set up visitation days between the two of you?” 

Jennie frowns, flipping to a clean page in her notebook and starts to write out the date in the top corner and the name of her class period. 

“Well, duh. But you already said you would spend the night at my house on Saturday, so I have you for the whole weekend. Lisa can have you next weekend and you _have_ to eat lunch with me, okay? If Lisa sees me sitting alone in the cafeteria, I might as well never show my face again. It would be so humiliating!” 

Breaking up is so hard. There are so many logistics to think about when you don’t have that person who was supposed to be your person for the rest of your high school life. It’s almost like Lisa completely disregarded the high school hierarchy for this rash decision. Now, Jennie has to take their pictures out of her locker. She has to scrub Lisa’s name off of the side of her Converses. She has to find a new seat in Home Ec. and throw out all of her notebooks that she scribbled her and Lisa’s name in with hearts around them. 

Lisa is so inconsiderate. 

She kind of wants to give the other girl a piece of her mind, but that would require opening her message and seeing that text, so she doesn’t do that. 

Maybe when she gathers up enough nerve she’ll do it. 

“I’m still gonna sit with you at lunch,” Chaeyoung snorts. “But we have to eat in the band hall because I like to practice when I finish eating. Also, the cafeteria has a really weird smell that makes my skin itch. We should call the FDA on our school and file a report.” 

Jennie hums and stops writing when she realizes that all she’s done is draw squiggly lines and circles around the date that she had written down. Her paper was colored in red and yellow ink, standing out like the worst color combination she could have imagined. It might as well have been a McDonald’s menu. 

“Okay, can you stay on the phone with me or are you busy? I need to talk to someone while I read this or else I’ll just end up falling asleep,” she frowned. 

“What are you reading?” 

“I don’t know.”

That startles a laugh out of Chaeyoung, one that makes Jennie actually smile for the first time tonight. It hurts to think that Lisa can send a stupid text message and it can wipe away all of her happiness. 

“I’ll stay on the phone with you but only until my mom comes up. She’ll get mad if I stay on the phone too long.” 

“Okay. Thanks, Chae.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

* * *

Jennie doesn’t actually get much reading done. She _tries_. She really does try to concentrate on the words on the page and even take notes on things that might seem important, but it just becomes _so_ boring that she can barely keep her head up.

Chaeyoung says something about the new Wonder Woman film coming out next weekend and then Jennie thinks about that time a year ago when her and Lisa went to see the first film in the theaters and Lisa held her hand over the armrest. They even shared a large popcorn and Lisa let her drink half of her Diet Coke and it was so fun that Jennie even wrote about it in her diary. 

It’s not fair that Lisa is ruining all of these memories for her. 

Chaeyoung ends up falling asleep about two hours later and Jennie listens to her snore softly before she decides to hang up. When she’s swathed in silence, it lets her mind wander and she hates when that happens because it means she has time to do things. 

Things like look across the room at her reflection in the mirror and stare at her pigtails. At the pigtails that Lisa had tugged on when she said she liked her. At the pigtails that Lisa sniffed and told her that her hair smelled like pineapples and strawberries. At the pigtails that she painstakingly styled and sprayed with hairspray so they could look thick and bouncy at cheer practice. At the pigtails that Lisa had said made her look pretty. 

So Jennie does the only reasonable thing that any other sixteen year old would do. She gets rid of the pigtails. 

It’s simple really. 

She takes out the hair tie on both sides and shakes her hair out. Then she pushes her chair back and walks out to go to her bathroom. With the light turned on, she rummages through the cabinets until she finds what she’s looking for. The box is still full but only because she wanted to do this last summer but Lisa talked her out of it because she said Jennie looked good with dark hair. 

She pops open the top and then pours the contents out on the counter. When everything is outside of the box, she rolls her sleeves up and takes one more look at herself in the mirror. 

“Hey.” 

* * *

“Holy shit,” Chaeyoung says. 

She hasn’t stopped looking at Jennie since she saw her this morning at the front office and she hasn’t stopped saying _‘holy shit’_ underneath her breath either.

They’re walking to the cafeteria, their arms linked together, and Chaeyoung won’t stop touching strands of her hair. 

“It’s _blonde_ ,” she says in awe. “Like, it’s _actually_ blonde.” 

“I know,” Jennie smiles. “It took me hours to do. I didn’t go to sleep until like three o’clock in the morning. My dad is going to be so mad when he wakes up and sees the bathroom,” she snorts. 

In Jennie’s defense, she was _trying_ to do something to make herself feel better and changing her hair did help a little. The blonde made her eyes stand out and it contrasted nicely against her tan skin. Also, the ponytail that she styled her hair in this morning made her look like Elle Woods, which was the point. She was one of her favorite characters. 

If Elle Woods could get dumped at dinner by her boyfriend and attend Harvard Law School, then Jennie could also get dumped eating samgyetang and make it through high school. 

“Are you going to keep it?” Chaeyoung asks. 

“Probably, I don’t know. We’ll see, but I like it so far. Do you think I look pretty with this color?”

Chaeyoung snorts and untangles their arms so she can grab a lunch tray.

“Of course you do. I don’t think it’s possible for you to look bad in any hair color. Well…” she says, tilting her head to the side. “Maybe you should stay away from green. That’s a bad color.” 

The cafeteria is crowded just like it is most days and even though she hasn’t said anything about it, Jennie is nervous that she might see Lisa. For lunch period, they always sat together at the table in the back, the one next to the window so they could watch the senior boys do donuts in the cars in the parking lot. 

She wants to glance back there, maybe to make sure that Lisa is or isn’t there. She’s not really sure, but Chaeyoung hands her a tray and she moves ahead in the line. Surprisingly, their food isn’t all that bad, maybe because their high school received a grant two years ago from a famous chef and has been providing meals since, but whatever the reason, Jennie is actually hungry after not eating much last night and this morning. 

After they gather their food, Jennie manages not to try and find Lisa. They squeeze past a group of girls looking at their phone and hold their trays over their head as they meander past the tables where some people have their backpacks or textbooks littered on the floor. 

In the band hall, Jennie finds a spot on the floor, criss crossing her legs so she can set her tray down on her lap. Chaeyoung grabs a stool and tucks it in behind the drums, leaning over to toss her headphones at Jennie so she can listen to music. 

Despite students trickling in and out of the room, they mostly move to opposite corners of the hall to eat or they stand against the wall and talk to the music director while he rubs at his eyes and flails his hand in the opposite direction to gesture at something. A few people come over to say hi to Chaeyoung and they talk for a little bit, but other than that, Jennie actually _likes_ eating in the band hall. 

It’s way less crowded than the cafeteria and there’s no strange smell in here that’s emanating from the kitchen. 

* * *

Jennie walks back home by herself for the first time in what feels like forever and she feels so _lonely_. 

At school, it’s so easy to be preoccupied with things other than her thoughts because she has Chaeyoung and classes and schoolwork, but when she steps off the bus and hears the doors slide shut behind her, it feels like everything that she pushed into the back of her head comes to the forefront.

As the bus ambles farther away down the street, Jennie walks behind it, kicking rocks with her shoes and staring at some of the little kids that play in the jungle gym set across the street. She can hear their laughter and the way some of the girls shriek as they lift their legs in the air on the swings. 

On the way home, she digs around in her pocket for her phone and sees that Chaeyoung had sent her a message only ten minutes ago. It’s a picture of her toenails and they look pretty; they’re covered in pink nail polish and there are tiny rhinestone designs that compliment the color. 

Jennie sends an emoji with heart eyes and swipes out of her messages, that dumb little ‘1’ notification still staring back at her. 

At home, Jennie lets herself in, kicking her shoes off by the door and setting her backpack down on the couch so she can do her homework in front of the tv later. Her dad won’t be back from work until later, so Jennie preoccupies herself with cleaning her hands, tying her hair up, and queueing up Netflix so she can watch Bojack Horseman.

The background noise is nice while she prepares a sandwich and looks for the last can of Coke that she hid away from her dad in the fridge. 

As she sits on the couch, she eats quietly, occasionally checking her messages and opening up Snapchat to see what her friends are doing, but it’s mostly mundane stuff. Jisoo is at the supermarket, adding an effect of flames next to a rack of dakgalbi; Jessica is still stuck at tutoring; and Mark looks like he’s at dance practice even though Jennie was almost certain he told her that his mom banned him from dancing because he flunked biology. 

After three episodes of Bojack Horseman, Jennie slides down to the floor and tries to get started on her homework, even pulling out her favorite Hello Kitty erasers with a sketch design on the front that she never uses. 

And for a while she manages to take one full sheet of notes, but then she just stops. And before she can stop herself, she’s reaching back on the couch for her phone and opening her messages. 

**From: Lisa**

**Yesterday 6:27 pm**

_Hey, i think we should break up. It’s not you, okay? I just need space, i think. I’m sorry, Jennie._

Jennie swallows audibly and stares at the message until her eyes start to burn. It’s weird because she’s never physically cried at anything before. Not when her mom left them years ago. Not when Chaeyoung broke her ankle and had to spend a week in the hospital. Not even when her dad yelled at her for maxing out his credit card on spaghetti strap tops from Urban Outfitters. 

But Jennie feels the urge to cry. She feels it now more than ever and it’s such a strange feeling because her throat constricts like she can’t breathe. And no matter how many times she tries to blink the feeling away, the pressure builds in her eyes until she has to look away. Until she has to press the back of her hand to her eyes and keep it from actually happening. 

She fucking hates her and Jennie doesn’t hate a lot of people. She might hate her mom for leaving her dad to care for a child and for leaving her behind to probably start a new life. And she might hate Target for that one time she kept calling to see if Overcooked was in stock but the employee kept telling her no. But she’s never hated anyone close to her. 

But she can feel it now. It radiates throughout her skull and underneath her skin and within her bones. It’s such a big fucking feeling that she throws her phone into the couch cushion and then screams. 

* * *

****

**2029: Ten years later**

“Mom, what’s a tundra?”

Jennie looks over the top of her magazine, using her finger to bookmark the page because it’s a really interesting section about mud masks. 

Nicholas is spread out on the carpet, kicking his legs back and forth in the air as he lays on his stomach. His backpack is open and most of the contents inside have spilled out underneath the coffee table. He’s coloring on something that looks like a sheet of paper, but when Jennie bends over, she sees that it’s actually a letter that looks like something from his teacher. 

Jennie sighs and takes the letter from him, putting her magazine to the side so she can read it. Underneath his squiggly lines and a drawing of what looks like a star, she can read the words: _‘science project_ ,’ _‘habitats_ ,’ and _‘must be a 3D diorama.’_

And at the bottom in bold letters is Nicholas’s name with the word, TUNDRA next to it. 

“I think you have to build a tundra,” Jennie says. 

Nicholas flops around on his back and stares up at his mom, his eyebrows furrowed in the same motion that her father would do. 

“But what _is_ a tundra, mom?”

“Uh….” 

Jennie reaches for her phone underneath her thigh and pulls up Google, typing in a quick search of the word and comes up with different images of grassy areas of land, some covered in thick layers of snow and others with ice and sheet surrounded by mountains. 

Jennie turns her phone around and shows the images, that look more or less the same to each other, at Nicholas. 

The little boy sits up and stares at her screen, pushing his hair out of his eyes and seems to only furrow his little eyebrows even harder. 

“But－” he says and looks up at Jennie nervously. “H-How will I make this?”

If Jennie hadn’t spent nine months carrying Nicholas inside of her and then another thirteen hours in labor trying to push him out of herself, then the only other way she would know that Nicholas was her kid is because of his grades. 

Nicholas hates school just as much as Jennie did when she was younger. He hates reading, he hates writing his name in cursive letters every Thursday, and he hates doing multiplication exercises at the table on Mondays. The only thing he likes to do is draw in his Spongebob coloring book and sit on his knees in front of the TV and play Crash Bandicoot with Jennie on Saturdays.

Jennie _tried_ to get him into school, like she really did, but the more she pushed him at it, the further she pushed him away from her. And that was the last thing that she wanted to do. She loved Nicholas a lot. He was such a carefree and energetic little boy and even if he didn’t want to do his homework sometimes, he always said, _‘please,_ ’ and _‘thank you’_ after his meals. He always brushed his teeth (albeit messily) before bed, and he always kissed Jennie goodbye on the cheek when she dropped him off at school.

He was such a fucking awesome kid and so what he didn’t like school? Jennie hated school and she turned out fine. Well, her father put her in charge of his accounting practice when he retired, but that's besides the point.

Yay, for nepotism!

“We can work on it together…?” Jennie suggested and she didn’t mean for it to come out exactly like a question, but it did and that made both of them pause. 

Nicholas knew that his mom wasn’t exactly the most helpful when it came to schoolwork. Usually, Jennie would call up his tutor that she paid on the weekdays, Minji, for help but she was vacationing with her family in Aspen at the moment so that was out of the question.

I mean, it was just a 3D model of the tundra. How hard could it be, right?

Well, apparently it could be really fucking hard when you had no idea what you were doing. 

The next day, while Nicholas was at school and Jennie didn’t have to go into the office, she went to the local craft store in town and had no idea what to buy to even start building the project. She kept pulling up images of it on Google and showing them to employees at the store, and they gave her some stuff to get started with, but how was she actually supposed to _build_ the damn thing? 

“Youtube!” Nicholas chirped. 

It was almost time for dinner and Nicholas walked into the kitchen with Jennie’s iPad in his hands, turning the screen around so he could show her. There was a picture of a woman in the thumbnail with her hair pulled back and her sleeves rolled up. In front of her on a white table, she had a bunch of craft pieces that almost looked vaguely familiar to the bags of stuff that Jennie had on the couch.

“We can watch this video, mom. I think she knows what she’s doing!”

The chicken was simmering in the pan and Jennie turned the heat down to allow it to cook, setting the cover over the top of it as she took the tablet from Nicholas. 

“Wow, huh...good job, little dude.” 

She held her hand out for a high-five and Nicholas smiled, missing two of his teeth in the front, but he still looked cute, and jumped up to high-five his mom.

“Can I go play on my Switch now?”

“No,” Jennie snorted. “Did you even start on your writing yet? I didn’t see you open your notebook at all since you got home. Maybe after dinner.” 

Nicholas’s shoulders dropped and usually his pout got him out of a lot of things because he had the most adorable lips that Jennie had ever seen, but she didn’t want him to fall behind others in class. 

“Come on,” she said and ushered him out of the kitchen. “Let’s go watch YouTube and do homework.” 

“I want to watch YouTube, but I don’t want to do homework!”

While they ate dinner at the table, Nicholas using both of his hands to get his spaghetti into his mouth and chew on the piece of parmesan chicken that Jennie had cut up for him, she watched the YouTube video. 

The woman was easy enough to follow along with. She was patient and took her time showing the different objects she was using to her viewers before she would use them. Sometimes she would show a different angle, so you could make sure that your objects looked as close to the same position as her own. Jennie kept pausing the video and restarting it so much, that Nicholas cleared his plate and even stood up on his tippy toes to push it into the sink so it could soak. 

When he walked back over to the table, he crawled into Jennie’s lap and watched the video intently before leaning forward to press a thumbs up on the video. 

"What’d you do that for?” Jennie asked him. 

“So, she can know that we liked her video and so she’ll make more to help us.” 

* * *

The project wasn’t due until next Tuesday, but Jennie wanted to get started on it as soon as possible because she knew that things would go bad and that they would eventually have to start over. 

So the next day, while Nicholas was taking a bath, Jennie found an old box at the top of her closet from a Chanel bag that her father had gifted her for Christmas, and began to get started. She covered the outside with white construction paper, cutting out enough paper to cover up the sides of the box that were black. She pressed down on the sides and flattened her palm along the edge until the paper was stuck to the box. 

After she was done, she went to go help Nicholas get dressed. They sang songs while he dried himself off and then she stood in the bathroom, brushing his hair back and tying it up into a small bun as he brushed his teeth. Once his pj’s were on, they went back to her bedroom and he jumped on top of her bed, staring in awe at the box. 

“You did that, mom?!”

“Don’t act so shocked!” she frowned and stuck her tongue out at him even though she was secretly pleased that Nicholas was surprised. 

“It was easy once I watched the video again. Now, come on, let’s put the grass on the bottom of the box and then it’s time for bed.”

The ‘grass’ consisted of some fake green moss that Jennie had bought at Wal-Mart for half-off, but Nicholas kept asking her how she picked so much grass when they didn’t even have a yard in their apartment complex. 

“I got this at the store,” Jennie snorted. 

Nicholas squirted more glue underneath the bottom of the box and leaned over to press the moss down into it. His fingers were covered in glue and green coloring, but he laughed in confusion as he looked up at his mom. 

“You can buy grass at the store? Why, mom?”

“It’s not _real_ , Nicky. It’s fake so you can use it for projects like this.” 

“Oh,” he said, his mouth opening in the shape of a little ‘O.’ 

They worked in relative silence, with Nicky asking questions about different things until they were able to cover the entire bottom of the box in grass. Jennie picked it up and held it in front of her, surveying it from side-to-side before she showed it to Nicholas. 

“You think it looks good, buddy?”

“Mhm!” he nodded his head quickly. “It looks real! My teacher is going to be so shocked!” he laughed.

Jennie smirked and pinched his cheek playfully, before moving over the side of her bed to set it on her desk. 

“Come on, babe. Let’s get to bed. We can work on it again tomorrow.” 

* * *

For the rest of the weekend, they spent making fake trees out of paper mache, glue, and using twigs from the park to make branches. They used paint to color the floor and painted the trees so they looked like they were covered in ice. 

Nicholas used some of the old newspapers in the bottom of the kitchen cabinet and balled it up to make it look like a mountain, sticking it behind some of the trees that they had already made. 

When they were done with that, Jennie cut up the rest of the newspaper and they painted it brown and stuck it into the ground to make it look like soil in the ground. 

When Nicholas scrambled up off the floor and ran into his room, Jennie waited, listening to him rummage around in his room before he ran back into the living room with his toys in his hand. 

“Can we put Captain America in the tundra?” he drops his action figures on the floor, picking out the Avenger and showing it to his mom.

“Uh…” she said, licking her lips. “Uh, I mean...yeah, sure. Why not, right? He’s probably lived through one anyway.”

Jennie shrugged and stuck him right in the corner underneath one of the trees that they had just stuck to the bottom. Jennie had gone to the dollar store and bought a handful of wildlife figurines that she thought would help make the tundra look more life-like. So Nicholas put those in too and when they were finished, Jennie felt so fucking proud of them that she had to take a picture and send it to her father. 

**From: Jennie 9:57 pm**

Dad! I helped Nicky with his science project for class. Doesn’t it look good? 

**From: Dad 10:00 pm**

You helped or the tutor helped and you just bought the supplies?

**From: Jennie 10:01 pm**

Hate you ! 

* * *

When Tuesday rolled around, Nicky sat in the backseat with his project in his lap, kicking his feet as he sang along to Rihanna and bobbed his head along to the beat. 

The school wasn’t very far from their complex, and while Nicholas sometimes walked to school, Jennie refused to let him walk in case something were to happen to his project. They had worked for days on that and watched over hours of that YouTuber make her own diorama and Jennie would be damned if Nicholas tripped on his shoelaces or something and fell over on top of it. 

When they pulled up to the school, Jennie found a parking seat and helped him out of his booster seat, taking his hand and gathering his project with the other arm. 

Despite it being mid-October, this was the first time that Jennie had been in her son’s school and the first time that she would actually get to see his teacher. Usually, her dad was the one that picked Nicky up from school and handled things with his teacher while she worked and traveled to different cities. 

It was another reason why she wanted to help Nicholas so much with this project because she didn’t want her son to think that she didn’t care about what he was doing in school. 

Nicky’s classroom is the last door in the second grade hallway. It has different cut-outs of all the planets of the solar system on the door and a makeup of stars that are probably supposed to form some sort of constellation, but Jennie’s not sure. 

The walls are decorated in past art projects: paper airplanes, origami figures, and colorful drawings of what are probably supposed to be sharks or some kind of aquatic animals. 

Jennie spots a drawing that might be Nicholas’s. It has the same squiggly lines that he’s always making on the paper and it might be his name in the top corner, but Jennie isn’t sure about that either. 

A handful of the students were being ushered into the classroom by their parents and Jennie smiled politely at them, nodding her head and watching as Nicholas waved at some of his classmates. 

“Come on, mom,” he said and pulled her into the classroom. 

There were small chairs set up all around the classroom with the names of each student on the back. A big blue banner that had the words, ‘Science Fair,’ in big, yellow block letters hung across the ceiling, and various cut-outs of animals and the weather patterns. 

Some students place their projects around the classroom and Jennie follows Nicholas around the room, letting him lead her over towards a table where a student with a bowl cut and round glasses is setting down his own box diorama. His teacher must not be in because all Jennie sees are kids and some parents push their child’s things onto the shelves. 

“Hi, Max!” Nicholas says. “Look, what my mom and I made.” 

He points at the box and Max has to push his glasses up, staring at it for a second before he gasps and points at the action figure.

“Captain America! That’s so cool! I think your project looks good.”

“Thanks,” he beams and tilts his head to the side, studying his friend’s project before he asks him what it’s supposed to be. 

“It’s the rainforest,” Max says and reaches forward to fix one of the trees that’s beginning to lean to the side. 

“My dad tried to put a －”

“Hey, guys. I’m so glad you could make it. Wow, look at all these cool projects!” 

Jennie turns around at the sound of what must be Nicky’s teacher, and she feels her spine seize up when she sees who it is. 

It’s Lisa and Jennie knows it’s Lisa because she remembers those gangly limbs. She remembers the dark shade of her eyes and how bright they were when she became excited. She’s wearing this ugly blue sweater with a white dress shirt underneath and a headband that had a plastic starfish attached to the top. Her hair is cut short into a bob and it’s so black that Jennie almost thinks it looks like the same shade it was in high school. 

“Mom!” Nicholas says, pulling on the sleeve of her coat. “That’s my teacher, Ms. Manoban!” Nicky says pointing to the woman.

Said teacher rakes her eyes over her classroom and when she catches a look at Jennie, she almost glosses over her, but she does a double take. It’s so quick that Jennie feels her teeth sink into the side of her cheek and Lisa’s shocked expression is enough to make her feel bile rise into her stomach. 

“...Jennie?”

Her arms lock into place and despite how hard she is gripping that shoe box in her hands, when Lisa realizes that it’s actually Jennie standing there with her child, her grip on the box slips and the diorama smashes to the floor. 

* * *

Nicky cries so hard that Jennie has to pull him out of the classroom and she feels so bad that he’s crying, that Jennie starts crying too.

It’s embarrassing, really. Some of the parents stand around and awkwardly watch them, while some of his classmates attempt to pick up pieces of his project and put it back together. 

When Lisa breaks out of whatever stupor she’s in, she tries to find some tissues around her classroom and offer them to both mother and son, but Nicky is inconsolable. He pushes the box of tissues away and Jennie is kind of worried that he might start hyperventilating if she doesn’t calm him down. So she blows on his face and wipes his face with the end of her cashmere sweater, internally cringing at the material effectively being ruined now. 

Eventually, she just picks him up and sits down with Nicky in her lap against the wall. 

“I’m sorry,” she sniffles and kisses the top of his head. 

Why did she drop the fucking thing? God, she’s so fucking stupid! Just because she couldn’t fucking handle it that her high school sweetheart was now her child’s teacher. 

So fucking stupid!

“Wh-Why did-did you d-d-drop it, mom?” Nicky’s trying to catch his breath and his eyes are puffy and Jennie’s heart aches all over again. 

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I don’t know. I was trying to hold it, and then it just slipped out of my hands. I’m _so_ sorry,” Jennie murmurs and kisses his wet cheeks. 

“I’ll talk to your teacher, okay? It was all my fault. Mom is so sorry, Nicky. You did an excellent job and I messed up. Not you.” 

Nicky rubs his eyes, his face swollen and red from crying so hard and Jennie kisses him again, rubbing the top of his head. 

“It’s－it’s okay, mom,” he sniffles. He rubs his nose again and then leans forward to hug her, winding his little arms around her neck. 

One thing about Nicky is that he’s quick to forgive, a trait that he certainly didn’t get from Jennie. But she still feels bad, like _really_ bad about it, so after rubbing his back and kissing his head once more, she promises to buy pizza tonight and let him stay up as long as he wants. 

“Really?!” he smiles excitedly. 

Jennie nods and laughs when Nicky kisses her on the mouth, his eyes giddy now that he isn’t crying anymore. 

“...um…” 

They both look over as Lisa steps outside of the classroom, closing the door behind herself. She approaches slowly, offering a small smile that’s supposed to be comforting, and maybe it is for Nicky, but it only makes Jennie nervous. 

“I wanted to check on you guys..” 

She’s talking to them, but she’s looking straight at Jennie. It makes her flush under direct eye contact and she busies herself with fixing Nicky’s hair even though it’s fine. 

“I thought your project was awesome, Nicky. I’m sorry that it broke, but look what I have here.” Lisa pulls out a lollipop from behind her back and the seven-year-old gasps, his eyes lighting up as he sees the colorful candy wrapped up. 

Lisa looks at her silently asking with her eyes, _‘is this okay?’_ and Jennie nods, weirdly giving her something that she hopes looks like a smile. 

Nicky climbs off her lap, running forward to take the lollipop that’s being offered to him and that gives Jennie a chance to get back to her feet, dusting off the front of her jeans. Nicky says a quiet, _‘thank you,_ ’ and smiles as Lisa tells him that he should go inside and wait with his friends. 

Jennie actually doesn’t think he should do that, but he runs inside anyway and suddenly Jennie and Lisa are left standing there in the middle of the hallway. 

Neither of them say anything to each other. Jennie doesn’t even want to say anything to Lisa. She doesn’t have anything to say, not really, but Lisa looks like she might open her mouth and that freaks her the fuck out. 

“You, um－” Lisa coughs and then shoves her right hand into her pocket. “You look...you look...uh, you look really good, Jennie. It’s nice to see you.” 

And Jennie’s used to compliments. She knows that she looks pretty; she gets her skin done every Friday at the spa and she works out with Nicky when they play Just Dance on Sundays, so it’s not really anything new. But coming from Lisa’s mouth, it makes her flush and she hates that Lisa can make her blush, even ten fucking years later. 

“Thank you,” she murmurs awkwardly, and glances up at Lisa before looking down again. “You...you look great too. Nicky loves you.” 

Lisa lets out a surprised laugh and it startles Jennie because it sounds the same as when they were sixteen years old. 

“He talks about you a lot. I had no idea you were his mother,” she says and her eyes follow Jennie as she rubs her hands together and nods. “I－I should have known though. He has your eyes. I see it now.”

Abort. Abort. Abort. 

Jennie feels her ears go up in flames and she really wants to curse right now. Nope. No. Hell no. She’s not doing _this_ , whatever this is right now. No way.

NOPE. 

Lisa must recognize the look of alarm on her face because she backtracks quickly, her eyes growing wide as she shakes her head. “Sorry! Sorry, sorry. I didn’t－I’m really sorry. That was out of line.” 

“I have to go,” Jennie manages to get out and without saying anything else, she turns around and speed walks out of the second grade hallway. 

* * *

Later on at home, Nicky eats cheese pizza in his pajamas, licking the grease off his fingers and watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier, as Jennie takes down her old high school yearbooks and flips them open. 

Sure enough, under the junior class of ‘19 there Lisa is, nearly five rows down from Jennie’s own picture. 

“Fuck,” she mutters. 

* * *

“Lisa is Nicky’s teacher.” 

Chaeyoung’s fork stops midway to her mouth. She looks over at Jennie and when she realizes that she’s being serious, she sets her fork down and swallows slowly. 

“No, shit?”

“I’m _serious_!” Jennie hisses, picking up her napkin and throwing it at her. 

Chaeyoung laughs, her hand coming up to cover her mouth and Jennie really wishes that she could punch her, but that would probably break her nails. 

“What a coincidence,” she giggles and reaches for her drink, taking a small sip. “Are you－how are you just finding this shit out? It’s the middle of November.” 

“I don’t know!” she frowns and stares down at her dish. She’s not even hungry, really, but this is their weekly tradition, a thing that they try to do no matter what. And despite feeling like a ball of nerves ever since she saw Lisa a few weeks ago, she couldn’t just bail on Chaeyoung.

“What do I do?” she asks the other girl. “Should I pull Nicky out of her class? Or do you think I－” 

Chaeyoung downs the rest of her water and shakes her head, quickly brushing off Jennie’s suggestion. 

“Bad idea,” she says. “What you need,” and she twirls some more spaghetti around her fork, “ is to get her number so you can get fucked.” 

Jennie kicks her leg under the table so hard that her wine glass spills over. 

* * *

No, Jennie doesn’t try to get her number. But Jennie _does_ try to actively avoid Lisa at any chance she gets. She speeds off from the pickup zone after Nicky’s strapped in, so Lisa doesn’t try to make small talk with her. She drops Nicky off in front of the school instead of walking him to the door, and when it’s parent-teacher night, Jennie sends her dad instead of going, making an excuse about coming down with a bug.

And really, it works－ for about a month. 

It’s not until Nicky’s running particularly late one day that Jennie makes a mistake. Instead of waiting in her car like she normally would, she parks in the front and sits outside on the bench, glancing down at her watch and then at the door until she sees it open and Lisa walks out holding Nicky’s hand.

Jennie wants to vomit. 

When Nicky sees her, he lets go of Lisa’s hand and runs forward, his backpack bouncing against his back as he jumps into Jennie’s outstretched arms. His cheeks are red, likely from the cold, and he has a bandaid over his chin. 

“What happened?” she frowns. 

“I fell when I was trying to get my backpack off the shelf. It’s okay! It doesn’t really hurt that bad. Ms. Manoban gave me a Transformers sticker,” he smiles and juts his chin out to show her. 

“Oh, okay,” Jennie says, and she kisses his booboo, rubbing the top of his head and standing back up.

Lisa looks awkward just standing there, her hands in her pockets and quietly watching them. It makes Jennie uncomfortable because she doesn’t know if she wants Lisa to say anything to her or not. 

“Thanks,” she mumbles pathetically, her eyes trained on the pavement.

“It’s no problem,” Lisa says. “Can I walk you guys to your car?” 

Her Mercedes isn’t even parked that far, but Jennie nods anyway, grabbing Nicky’s hand and leading them over to her car. When Nicky climbs into his booster seat and buckles himself in, Jennie slams the door shut and walks over to the driver’s side. She doesn’t get inside, but she grabs a hold of the door handle, gripping it nervously as Lisa looks over at her. 

“So－” 

I was just－” 

Both of them blush and Jennie shakes her head, gesturing for Lisa to speak first. 

“Can we get coffee or something? It’s okay if you say no, or whatever. I won’t be upset. I just...I don’t know, but I would really like to talk to you if that’s okay? Just...like I said, just coffee or tea, whatever you prefer.”

Jennie wasn’t prepared for that spiel so it takes her by surprise. But Lisa looks hopeful and anxious, and for some reason that makes Jennie feel good because she’s glad she’s not the only one freaking out. 

“That’s okay,” she murmurs and then Jennie spins around, hurriedly getting in her car and slamming the door shut. 

“I’ll text you,” she says quickly before Lisa is nodding, partially dumbfounded, and pulls her car out, speeding off in the opposite direction. 

* * *

Jennie doesn’t _actually_ text Lisa. 

She actually spends three days looking through all of Nicky’s school notes and pamphlets to find Lisa’s number and when she does find it, she spends another five days just staring at the digits until she finally builds up the nerve to send her a message. 

**From: Jennie 4:44 pm**

It’s me, Nicky’s mom. Um, so yeah, getting back to you about that coffee offer. There’s a place in Midtown called Tiferet Coffee House. I can meet you on Sunday at 1:00 pm if that works for you.

Jennie throws her phone on the couch and tries not to look at it because she’s not desperate for Lisa to respond to it or anything. She’s just nervous as hell that she’s making a big mistake.

**From: Lisa 6:10 pm**

That’s fine! I’ll see you on Sunday. Thank you, Jennie

No, Jennie doesn’t stare at the message until her phone locks. And no, Jennie doesn’t open it back up to stare at the message. She does neither of those things. 

* * *

The coffee shop is a small, quaint building with limited seating and warm lights that helps Jennie relax as she takes a seat at one of the tables by the window. It’s not particularly busy, but there are a few people seated at other tables on their laptops or reading a book while they sip at their drinks. 

Jennie had arrived early, twenty minutes early actually, and had sat in her car because she was so fucking nervous. She didn’t actually get out until she realized it was almost one and figured she might as well find a seat. 

The employees bustle back and forth from the counter to the kitchen, taking orders, making small talk with some of the customers, and humming along to the music in the shop. Jennie’s a regular here, so when her order comes, Amanda, the barista with blonde hair and a nose ring in the shape of a star, winks at her and offers Jennie a free chocolate chip cookie. 

Part of Jennie doesn’t actually want Lisa to show and she doesn’t know why that is. She doesn’t even eat the cookie. She just stares at it until she hears the bell above the shop door jingle, and Lisa is walking through with a bag over her shoulder and her hair halfway up. 

She spots Jennie immediately, her mouth lifting up in a small smile as she waves. 

Jennie feels herself let out a breath and she lifts her hand as well, waving back at her. 

Lisa orders something first, glancing over at Jennie every now and then like she has to make sure that she’s still there and it makes Jennie flush, staring down at her napkin. When she finally joins her at the table, she sets her bag on the back of the chair and crosses her arms in front of herself. 

She looks nice and Jennie hates it because Lisa shouldn’t look this good ten years later. It irritates her because she dresses exactly like how a teacher should dress and she just can’t believe Lisa had to be Nicky’s teacher. 

“Thanks for meeting me,” she says, looking up and rubbing her hands together. “You look really nice and again, um. Just...thanks for agreeing to come,” she says nervously. 

Jennie tries not to blush because she doesn’t want Lisa to think that she’s secretly pleased or anything, so she coughs and tries to hide it. 

“Um, yeah, no problem.”

Silence falls over their table and one of the baristas comes over, handing Lisa her drink before she walks away. It feels so awkward because Lisa and her have always known how to talk to each other. They never lapsed into silence like this, always finding something to talk about for hours. But that was then when they were both silly teenagers and things have changed too much to look back on that. 

“Where’s Nicky?” Lisa finally asks. 

“Um, with his grandpa. I think they went to go take pictures with Santa. He loves doing that every year and my dad loves taking him, so yeah…” she trails off lamely. Jennie plays with her fingers underneath the table. She wants to drink her espresso because she really loves it, but she just feels so uncomfortable.

“He made this,” Lisa says suddenly and she turns around, reaching her bag to pull out a paper and slide it over the table to Jennie. 

It’s a drawing of what looks like Jennie and Nicky with her grandpa. They’re outside because the sun is colored in the corner of the sheet, but there’s also snow on the ground and a shape that suspiciously looks like a snowman. It’s really cute and Jennie smiles, tracing her finger over the sloppy writing of their respective names on top of each stick figure. 

“Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome.” 

Lisa takes another sip of her drink, her fingers tapping along the edges of the cup before she sighs. She looks like she wants to say something so Jennie waits, giving her the space to try to think of what she wants to say. 

“I’m sorry about back then－about everything. I know that it was a long time ago and all, but you deserve an apology. It was stupid of me to say that to you over the phone and you just－” she pauses, closing her mouth, and then opens it again. “You didn’t deserve that and I’m just really sorry. About all of it.” 

It’s an apology and it’s a start and somehow Jennie feels like she can unclench her fingers. “Thanks. You didn’t have to, but I’m grateful nonetheless.” 

Lisa nods and then she looks down at the table, tracing her finger over the wood pattern in the table. When she reaches back in her bag again, Jennie thinks that she might pull out another one of Nicky’s drawings, but instead, it’s her phone. 

Jennie watches as she opens the screen and begins typing something out before Jennie’s own phone starts buzzing. 

“What are you…”

“Just look at it,” she chuckles, gesturing with her chin at Jennie. 

Jennie frowns at Lisa, reaching for her phone in her pocket and pulls the device out, unlocking it with her thumb and sees the message across the top. 

**From: Lisa 1:25 pm**

Am I forgiven? 

Jennie rolls her eyes and tucks her lips in as she types out a reply. 

**From: Jennie 1:27 pm**

Yeah, I guess. 

**From: Lisa 1:27 pm**

:)

**From: Lisa 1:28 pm**

I like your outfit, the cream really suits your eyes

**From: Jennie 1:30 pm**

Stop it

**From: Lisa 1:31 pm**

Why?

**From: Jennie 1:31 pm**

Because...you’re not allowed to do that anymore. You can’t just say that.

**From: Lisa 1:33 pm**

But your eyes are pretty :(

I’ve always thought your eyes were pretty

“Stop it,” Jennie whines and she covers her face with her hands, making sure that Lisa can’t see her.

“What are you doing?” Lisa chuckles. 

“I don’t want you to see my eyes,” she frowns. “So I'm covering them.” 

Lisa snorts and Jennie doesn’t see her as she scoots her chair out. She only hears the legs drag noisily against the tile, before she feels warm hands grab a hold of her wrists. Lisa tugs gently, pulling at her until Jennie lets her hands fall away. 

Up this close, she can see all of Lisa’s face. She can see her long eyelashes, the roundness of her eyes, the smooth slope of her nose, and the give her lips as she quirks a smile at her. It’s so fucking unfair how pretty she looks. So unfair. 

“I didn’t mean to break up with you like that when we were in high school,” she finally says. “I didn’t _want_ to break up with you and it was so cowardly of me to do it over the phone.” Lisa licks her lips and runs her thumb over the bone in Jennie’s wrist. 

“But I was leaving－well, my mom had gotten a promotion at a film studio in Canada, so we had to move. I found out the day before and I was so scared, scared of what you would think and I chickened out. I didn’t know how to face you, so I just sent you that message. I didn’t even have time to go to your house or give you a hug or say goodbye properly. I just thought that breaking up was the best thing because I didn’t want you to feel like you had to be with me when I was all the way across the world. I’m sorry, Jennie. I’m really sorry.” 

“What?” Jennie blinks. “You what?”

“You moved to Canada?” 

“Yes,” Lisa nods. “I left that weekend.”

And if Jennie thinks about it, it makes sense. After that message, Jennie never saw her around campus again. She tried, even though she never told Chaeyoung, she did try to look for Lisa. She would wait across the hall outside of her classrooms or take longer in the art room so she could see Lisa in the hallway. She would stay behind in chemistry to see if Lisa would come in for next period, but she never did. 

Even in the yearbook, Lisa wasn’t in any of the editions after 2019. 

Fucking hell. 

When Jennie realizes that, she pulls her wrist out of Lisa’s grip and smacks her shoulder. “Punk!”

“Ow!” Lisa flinches, frowning at her. “What was that for?”

“Why didn’t you just say that?! We could have stayed together or at least kept in touch! Punk!” she smacks her shoulder again and again, but Lisa finally catches her wrist and wrangles it into her lap. 

“Stop,” she laughs. “Stop hitting me,” she smiles and shrugs her shoulders. “I couldn’t do that to you. It wasn’t right, but yeah that’s why. It’s not that I didn’t like you or anything. I was crazy about you. I just didn’t know how to explain a move like that to you. I just thought it would be easier that way.” 

“It’s okay,” Jennie murmurs. And it is. They were just sixteen and regardless of their relationship, a move like that had to be tough for any teenager in high school. Lisa had to start over. She had to get new friends, meet new people, learn in a new country, and live somewhere else. She can’t even imagine what that must have been like. 

“Thank you for telling me.” 

Lisa smiles and she doesn’t let go of Jennie’s hands, instead choosing to interlace their fingers together. It should fucking frighten her because this is them and this is intimate for them, but it doesn’t. For once, it doesn’t frighten her.

* * *

“Where are you going, mom?” Nicky stands on her bed, twisting around in circles as he tries to catch his tail that his grandpa bought him at the toy store. 

It’s fuzzy with purple stripes and covered in green spots, but Nicky loves it. Sometimes he likes to run across the room and pretend he’s a dog, but then last night he wanted Jennie to put his dinner in a bowl so he could eat off the floor, and she told him to take the tail off. 

But he’s got it on now and she doesn’t have the heart to tell him to sit down. 

“I’m just going to eat dinner with your teacher.” 

That stops Nicky in his tracks and Jennie almost laughs at the quizzical expression on his face. 

“My teacher?” he frowns. “Why? Was I being bad at school?”

Jennie finishes zipping up the back of her dress and turns around, shaking her head at her son. “No, darling. You weren’t bad. Ms. Manoban just wanted to get food with me and I said okay.” 

“Oh!” Nicky says. “Where are you eating?”

“I don’t know. It’s a surprise, babe.” 

Lisa had texted her a few nights ago to get dinner at a restaurant outside of the city and although they had been texting every night since their coffee meeting, it still made Jennie feel nervous－ but in a good way. 

Nicky seems to lose interest in that line of conversation pretty fast because he throws himself back on her bed and shrieks with laughter when the throw pillows practically swallow him whole. It makes Jennie smile, watching him be happy like that. She decides to take a video of him and then sends it to Chaeyoung along with a selfie of herself.

She picked a black dress, one she had hardly ever worn but the neckline was low enough to give a great view of her boobs and it hugged her body in all the right places. She put a simple beaded necklace on and a set of matching earrings with small diamonds. Nicky climbed off the bed at one point and handed her a bracelet resting on her table, saying that it made her look even prettier. 

And when 7:00pm rolled around, Jennie dropped her son off with her dad and drove to the restaurant, agreeing to meet her there because she didn’t want to hassle her with picking Jennie up. 

Lisa was waiting outside when Jennie pulled into the parking lot. She put her car in park and then checked her teeth in the mirror one last time before getting out. When Lisa saw her, she smiled, her teeth showing and offered her the small bouquet of white carnations. 

“You look great. I’m so glad you could make it.” 

“Thank you,” Jennie blushed and she brought the flowers up to her face, smelling the scent of them. 

“You look good too, Lisa.” She was wearing a red dress with heels and a blazer to go over it. Her hair was also done up in a ponytail and it made her eyes seem even more brighter if that was even possible. 

“Shall we?” she said, gesturing inside. 

Jennie nodded and waited as Lisa opened the door behind her and gently led her inside. The restaurant was small with the tables spread out and soft lighting drowning the room in shades of red and maroon. The chatter of other people buzzed silently in the background and after checking in, Lisa led them to a booth in the back where they were next to a live band. 

“This is so pretty,” Jennie said, smiling at her waiter as he introduced himself. They were given their menus and a selection of wine, but they both opted for water for now. 

“You like it?” Lisa asked, her nose scrunching up. “I hope it’s not too much.” 

“It’s not,” Jennie shakes her head. “It’s perfect.” 

Lisa smiles at her and Jennie has to set the flowers down and hold her menu up so she doesn’t do something silly like start crying. 

As they wait for their food, they talk about their jobs, Jennie tells her about Nicky and her dad, letting her know what their plans for Christmas are, and in return, she listens to Lisa’s life and what it was like for her in Canada. They talk all night about anything and literally everything. It feels like a complete turnaround from their meeting at the coffee shop and even as the restaurant begins to thin out, they find that they still have so much to tell each other. 

Lisa is scrapping the last of her lasagna off her plate, sighing happily as she swallows the rest of her sauce and it makes Jennie laugh. 

“I think I’m gonna get another date after this judging from that smile,” Lisa chuckles. She wipes her mouth and because their booth is so small, she’s able to scoot over until they’re practically pressed up next to each other. 

“Who said anything about this being a date?” Jennie rolls her eyes. 

“They did,” Lisa said, gesturing down at her boobs. 

Jennie bursts out laughing, picking up her napkin and pretends to throw it at Lisa’s face. “I knew you were staring at my chest all night. You totally didn’t pay attention to anything I said, did you?” 

Lisa laughed, throwing her head back, and it should have embarrassed Jennie considering they were in a restaurant, but it only made her smile even harder. 

“I was _not_ staring at your chest all night. I was trying to alternate between staring and conversing.” 

Both of them giggled like they were teenage girls all over again and sneaking out of homeroom to sit underneath the bleachers. 

When they calmed down, Jennie rested her head against Lisa’s shoulder, feeling the food and the drinks create a pleasant thrum in her body. The music was good and she stared at the violinist on stage, watching the way his hands moved as Lisa stroked her thumb. 

“Nicky’s dad isn’t in the picture,” Jennie suddenly says. Lisa keeps stroking her thumb and it makes Jennie feel like she can finally breathe in and out.

“It was in college. We met through friends and we were in the same major, we just kept seeing each other. It wasn’t even anything special. When I got pregnant, it was after graduation and we decided to split. We weren’t even really into each other. Sometimes Nicky sees him during the summer or over holidays.”

“I’m not seeing anyone,” Lisa murmurs. “ I was－um, last year. It was a guy who taught at a community college a few miles outside of the city. It was okay for a bit, but I just got bored.” 

Jennie hums and feels the way that Lisa trails her fingers over her hand, eventually flipping it over so she can lace their fingers together. 

“I’m still mad at you,” Jennie says, squeezing their conjoined hands. 

“Why?”

“I wanted to lose my virginity to you when we became seniors. I had it all planned out. I was going to ask my dad to leave and bring you over so we could watch Nightmare on Elm Street. Then we could steal some of the beer out of the fridge and eat pizza and then fuck.” 

Lisa chokes out a laugh and she brings a hand up to cover her mouth. She laughs so loud that some people stare over at their table and Jennie’s cheeks flush in embarrassment. 

“Stop laughing! I was serious,” she pouts.

“What?” Lisa is having trouble calming down and her eyes are kind of watering from laughing so hard. 

“And so, I _didn’t_ get to lose my virginity to you. I lost it to some guy at a party when I was in college. It was mediocre at best and he finished too fast. I thought I had dreamed the entire thing. So unsatisfying,” she rolls her eyes. 

Lisa turns her head, giggling into her shoulder and it makes Jennie smile because she loves Lisa’s laugh－she loves a lot of things about Lisa. 

“I cannot _believe_ you said that,” Lisa said between a fit of giggles.

“It’s true,” Jennie shrugs. “Besides, Nicky is at his grandpa’s house and if we leave right now, I’ll let you spend the night and you can pay me back about ten years worth of sex. I’ll even let you pull my hair.”

Lisa shakes her head, laughing uncontrollably, but she pulls Jennie close, turning her head so she can kiss her quiet. Her lips are smooth and her breath tastes like mozzarella and wine, but it makes Jennie dizzy because no one one fucking kisses like Lisa does. 

“As long as you put your hair in pigtails,” Lisa smiles and Jennie giggles against her mouth, biting down on her bottom lip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for requesting this! I enjoyed writing it a lot. I hope you guys liked it too. Happy New Year!


	7. I'm not using you, I want to be with you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This thing between Chaeyoung and Jennie is just that﹣a thing. It doesn't have to mean anything, though. It's just two girls﹣two girls that don't know what they're doing and how much feelings tend to complicate things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pairing: jennie/rose
> 
> tags: romance, first times, longing, repressed feelings, friends with benefits, idols
> 
> request for: rosievocalista

**January 26, 2019**

**Hong Kong**

Chaeyoung feels Jennie behind her before she hears her. Jennie’s steps are always so lithe and quiet, like she never wants anyone to know where she is or how close she is to you. That’s why Chaeyoung doesn’t jump when Jennie touches her elbow or when she skims her fingers down her forearm and grabs a hold of her wrist.

Her fingers are cold, but the AC had been turned up all the way in the van on the way to the venue. Chaeyoung remembers watching Jennie push her arms inside of her t-shirt and curl her feet up underneath herself. As the van rode along in the dark, Chaeyoung had stared at Jennie through the rear-view mirror and almost told her to _‘come here.’_

She almost wanted to tell Jennie to let her hold her hand. She wanted to whisper to her that it was okay; it was okay to touch her when there were other people around. 

It seems weird to think of stuff like that in her head, and it seems weird to think about it now, when Jennie is tugging her away from the edge of the stage. But she’s familiar with the way she moves and if she tried to wrap her head around, she might even be familiar with the way Jennie thinks. 

They don’t have a lot of time and they don’t want anyone to see them﹣at least Jennie doesn’t﹣and Chaeyoung isn’t going to question that now. Instead, she lets herself be pulled along towards the back where a set of microphones and headsets lay untouched in a box. The door is propped open with a jam and Chaeyoung can hear people faintly behind the door, but it doesn’t seem to bother Jennie. 

She steps back, a little bit more underneath where the stage lights can’t quite reach them, and pulls Chaeyoung in front of her. 

When Jennie first touched her, it was during their evaluation rounds at YG when she was a stupid, 17-year-old girl and the older girl with the circles under her eyes and the sweat on her hairline, had smiled at her. She had reached out her hand, helping Chaeyoung off the floor after dance evaluations, and Chaeyoung had watched her. She had watched her stand beside YG and the other backup dancers. She had watched her quietly whisper in the other trainee’s ears and saw her practice more times than anyone she had seen the inside of the building. 

It was so fucking stupid back then, but when Jennie had grabbed her hand, she was grabbing a part of Chaeyoung. She was grabbing a part of her and pulling her closer to her. 

Even now, Chaeyoung couldn’t explain what that was like and she couldn’t explain what it meant because in theory, it didn’t mean anything. 

“Hey,” Jennie breathes into her cheek. She can feel her nose press into the side of her cheek and she can smell the mouthwash on her breath and the Coco Chanel No. 5 that seeps from her neck. 

When Chaeyoung closes her eyes, she can see the way Jennie looked as she slept in the twin mattress across the room; she can see the way they sat beside each other as they ate breakfast at the hotel and Jennie had held her hand. She can see the way that Jennie had stared back at her as they got dressed in the waiting room and the stylist told Chaeyoung to stop turning her head. 

So it feels easy to whisper back a quiet, _“hey,”_ underneath her own breath. It feels easy to slide her hands up the side of Jennie’s outfit, feeling the sequins on her shorts and the straps of her shirt, and the microphone that’s taped onto her back. 

She could recognize Jennie from her touch alone and maybe that’s a bad thing﹣maybe that’s something she shouldn’t be able to do, but she can’t help it now. 

Her fingers grab a steady hold of Jennie’s hips, angling her to the side as she ducks her head slightly to give her a kiss. It’s a simple peck, just a gentle brush of their lips, but it makes Chaeyoung’s fingers shake. It makes her mouth open with a silent gasp when Jennie leans up on her toes and traces her lips with her tongue. 

“Are you okay?” Jennie murmurs. 

She asks so softly that Chaeyoung almost misses it. But she can see the way parts of her face shift in concern; Jennie was always good at displaying what she felt on her face. Chaeyoung can’t see her eyes though, and it should bother her, it should bother her that they still have to sneak around and meet like this, but it doesn’t. 

So when she nods her head, she doesn’t expect for Jennie to tuck her hair behind her ear and for the older girl to lean closer, pushing her nose up against her own. It makes her smile and that small smile is enough to make Jennie grin. She can see the glint of her teeth and the way her nose scrunches up, and it makes Chaeyoung kiss the top of her nose.

 _‘I’m okay like this,’_ she wants to tell her. _‘I’m okay with you being with me.’_

It would be so easy to say that, and yet it would be the single most terrifying thing that Chaeyoung could ever say in her life. 

Sometimes, she thinks that words weren’t meant to come out of her mouth. Sometimes, she thinks that it’s better to be silent﹣that it’s better not to ruin things like this﹣things like the way Jennie is looking her; the way she’s holding her waist; the way she can feel her breath on her skin; and the way that she knows any second now, Jennie is going to beg her to kiss her. 

So she stays quiet. Chaeyoung closes her eyes and she stays quiet.

* * *

**February 6, 2019**

**Pasay, Philippines**

Four days after their concert, Chaeyoung gets a text message from Jennie while she’s brushing her teeth in the bathroom.

**From: Jennie 3:11 p.m.**

You want to head out and do something? Just the two of us? 

She sets her phone down and spits into the sink, rinsing her mouth with water and splashing some of it on her face, before she straightens up and reaches for the hand towel. It’s only when she’s done drying her hands that she sees her screen light up with another message.

**From: Jennie 3:14 p.m.**

Chae?

She picks up her phone and calls her instead, listening to the line ring only twice before the call connects. 

“Sorry, I was brushing my teeth. You want to go out?”

“If you want,” Jennie says and she sounds like she’s shrugging, and it makes Chaeyoung smile. 

“I just﹣you know Lisa is out with the manager and Jisoo is pretty tired, so….we could, you know, just f-find something to do…”

The way she trails off, like she’s nervous that Chaeyoung is going to turn her down, is really cute and it makes her stand in the doorway of her bathroom, twirling the tie of her robe between her fingers. 

“Where do you want to go?”

Jennie pauses, then she takes a deep breath, before exhaling again. “I-I don’t know. Wherever, I guess? I mean...I’m kind of hungry, so maybe we could look for something to eat?”

“Okay,” Chaeyoung agrees easily. “I just...I just need to get dressed and then I’ll meet you out in the hall?”

“Um...I’m down in the lobby, actually. I was getting some orange juice from the bar and I stopped to watch something on the TV. Do you want me to come up or should﹣”

“No, no. I’ll come down there. Just give me a sec, okay?”

“Yeah, um, okay,” and Chaeyoung can hear the smile in her voice. “See you soon.”

“Alright.” 

She gets dressed quicker than usual, throwing on a skirt and pulling a t-shirt over her head, as she combs her fingers through her hair. She wanted to do a little more, put some effort in her makeup, but she simply grabs her bag off the bed post and slides her feet into her sandals. 

The elevator ride is quick and by the time the doors slide open, she can look out into the lobby and immediately spot Jennie leaning her hip against the couch. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail and she has on a black strappy dress with tennis shoes. 

She looks comfortable. She looks good and Chaeyoung has to take a minute. When she steps out of the elevator, she tightens her hold on her bag and stands next to the plants against the wall, just watching Jennie, watching as she turns her phone over in her hands and taps the screen when it faces up. 

For a minute, Chaeyoung doesn’t even move. She just stands there and watches her until it feels like she knows what she wants to say. So, when Jennie finally turns around, Chaeyoung stalks over, her mouth quirking up into a small smile as the other girl waves. 

“Hey.” 

“Hi,” Jennie grins and she lifts her hand like she wants to touch Chaeyoung, but she pulls her hand back and just smiles again. 

“Y-You ready?”

 _For what?_ Chaeyoung wants to ask her, but she bites her tongue. Instead, she simply nods her head and motions towards the front of the hotel with her chin, _‘shall we go?’_

The heat in the Philippines sticks to their skin like mothballs inside a dresser full of shirts. Chaeyoung can feel her sweat slide down the back of her shirt and in the groove of her lower back. She can feel the hairs on the back of her neck stand as the sun beats down on them and the air from nearby stalls runs across her skin. When she licks her lips, she can taste the salt on her skin and feel the slow drag of the sunlight as it washes across the streets. 

Pasay is no more crowded than Seoul, with its narrow streets and crowded shop stalls, there are merchants in the streets walking down the side of the road with baubles of cartoon characters on backpacks and t-shirts that look like they’ve been hand drawn. A boy runs from across the street with a Yankees baseball cap on his head and Chaeyoung snorts, watching him duck underneath a curtain that leads to a shop entrance. 

Jennie walks beside her quietly, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand, and her other brushes up against the back of Chaeyoung’s hand. Every time it does, she has this weird urge to grab it but she decides against, not wanting to make Jennie feel uncomfortable. 

Eventually, they find a restaurant at the corner of the street next to a shoe store as an old man sits outside and holds up a sign that reads, ‘Half off everything inside.’ 

The restaurant is small with only a handful of tables scattered around the inside, but the fan blowing inside is a welcome relief from the heat. Chaeyoung finds a table by the wall surrounded by potted plants and a Philipine flag hanging overhead. 

“Let’s sit here.” 

“Okay,” Jennie smiles. They sit down, Jennie fanning herself with her hand, before she turns to look out the window. Chaeyoung tries to avoid it but their knees knock together underneath the table and as much as she wants to ignore it, it feels good. 

A young woman walks over, handing them each a menu, and they skim through the options even though there isn’t much. It’s a small, family owned restaurant and their stomachs grumble as the smells from the kitchen waft out into the dining area. 

Chaeyoung settles on kare-kare and a beer, while Jennie opts for pancit guisado. Neither of them have any idea what it is exactly, but the pictures look good enough that they shrug and thank the waitress after she writes down their orders. When she walks away, Jennie pulls out her phone and Chaeyoung tries to not let it upset her that Jennie dragged her outside to eat, if she was just gonna be on the phone with someone else the whole time. 

It’s not like it’s her business what Jennie does anyway. But then the older girl reaches across the table and laces their fingers together, angling her phone to the side so she can take a photo of their hands. 

Chaeyoung blinks and then she blinks again. Even when Jennie puts her phone down on the table, she doesn’t pull her hand away and it’s another minute before Jennie says anything. 

“It’s okay.” And Chaeyoung suspects that this should be some kind of sentiment to make her feel better and it does, but it also makes her realize how uptight she must look. This is the first time they’ve ever done something like this just with each other and in public nonetheless. 

So she tells herself to relax, to squeeze Jennie’s hand back and give her a real smile﹣and it works. She finds herself pushing her chair closer to Jennie’s own and she doesn’t let go of her hand until the waitress finds her way back to their table with two sets of dishes in her hands. 

The kare-kare bubbles around viciously in the bowl as Chaeyoung picks up her spoon and stirs the contents inside. It’s a thick soup base with a deep orange color﹣almost like turmeric, even though the menu said it was a peanut and oxtail sauce. She can pick out chunks of meat at the bottom of the bowl and when she scoops some up, Jennie knocks their knees together to get her attention. 

“Let me try some,” she says, holding her mouth open.

_You have your own food._

Chaeyoung wants to tell her that and she almost does, but the retort dies on her tongue. Instead, she blows carefully on her spoon and feeds it to Jennie, watching as the girl closes her lips around it and chews. 

And when Jennie is twirling her own sautéed noodles around her fork, she lifts it up, holding her hand underneath it so none of it spills and smiles as she pushes it against Chaeyoung’s lips.

They spend the afternoon in the restaurant, talking to each other, finishing their food and taking a bunch of silly photos that Chaeyoung can’t stop staring at when Jennie gets up to use the bathroom. And when the sun starts to set and Lisa sends her a text asking where they’re at, Chaeyoung tells her that they’re on their way back. 

They take a little bit longer though. Jennie wants to buy something for her mom, so they venture out to find a mall and she watches to the side as Jennie thumbs through racks of clothing and skims her fingers along the jewelry counter as an attendant shows her different pieces of earrings, necklaces, or bracelets. Eventually, Jennie settles on a black Louis Vuitton pouch and a set of earrings that she says will match a necklace that her mom loves. 

And when they’re ambling back to their hotel, they find a vending machine at the end of the street and Chaeyoung buys them both a Coke, watching Jennie as she wipes the sweat from her forehead and drinks.

On the elevator ride up to their room, Jennie presses Chaeyoung back into the rail and although it hurts her back, she can’t help but laugh as Jennie smiles into a sweet kiss.

* * *

**March 3, 2019**

**Taipei, Taiwan**

Linkou Arena is packed, the area easily filled with over tens of thousand of fans that Chaeyoung can barely make out underneath the lights. All she can hear is their screams and no matter how many times she’s been on the stage since their tour started, it never fails to give her goosebumps down the length of her arm. 

She watches as Jisoo runs down the stage, throwing her hands up, and sees the way her skirt billows out when she turns to do a spin. She hasn’t stopped smiling all night, and when Jisoo spots the banner with her name a little farther out, she turns to look up at the large screen where fans can see her eyes water. 

Lisa and Jennie are waving at fans at the edge of the platform, their arms intertwined as girls throw plushies, hold up banners, and wave their light sticks back and forth. 

In the beginning, it used to bother Chaeyoung how close Lisa and Jennie were: always attached at the hip wherever they went, always having these little inside jokes that her and Jisoo could never figure out, or spending time always away from the group. 

It bothered Chaeyoung that Jennie was so close to someone that wasn’t her and sometimes she thought to herself why Jennie just didn’t do whatever _they_ were doing with Lisa. A few times she wanted to ask her, like if Lisa was holding Jennie’s hand a bit too long, or when Jennie was looking at Lisa a certain way that made Chaeyoung feel uncomfortable, but she never did. 

When it’s Chaeyoung’s turn to do her solo bit, she lifts the strap of her guitar over her neck and fits her earpiece in her ear, listening to the audio rush into her ear. She doesn’t feel Jennie come up behind her, so it surprises her when she wraps her arms around her waist, squeezing her gently around her middle. 

“Hey,” she says and lets go just as quickly. Her brow is starting to sweat and Chaeyoung smiles back at her, taking a moment to catch her breath because it feels like she can’t breathe. 

“Good luck out there,” Jennie whispers, gesturing her chin towards the stage. 

The lights have already begun to change colors and some of the backup dancers have already walked off the stage. This isn’t the first time that she’s done this stage; they’ve been to five different cities already. Her fingers understand the chords of her guitar better than they know her own body and the lyrics are practically the only thing she knows how to sing sometimes. 

Still, the thought that Jennie knows this already and still chooses to wish her good luck makes her toes curl inside of her shoes. 

“Thanks,” she says back and when Jennie turns around to walk off, Chaeyoung watches her.

In Taipei, Chaeyoung and Jennie are rooming together with their manager, opting to share one of the large beds while Sunyeol takes the other. 

It’s nearly midnight and Sunyeol steps out, saying something about getting drinks with the other managers, and Jennie waves her hand, barely listening to her as she scrolls through Instagram on her phone. 

“I’ll be back later. Call me if anything,” she mumbles. 

When the door shuts behind her though, Jennie rolls over on her front and tosses her phone on top of the sheets. She’s only wearing a thin t-shirt and shorts that could be Jisoo’s but Chaeyoung isn’t sure. 

The Good Place is on and Chaeyoung can’t remember where she was at when she last watched it in Korea, but the episode that’s currently playing is one that she doesn’t remember, so she figures it’s okay to continue watching it. 

“Hey,” Jennie whispers. “Pay attention to me.” 

She lays on her side, spreading her fingers out on the mattress and Chaeyoung ignores her﹣or _tries_ to at least﹣but it’s impossible to ignore Jennie. She’s a person that can’t ever be ignored once you know her. 

When Chaeyoung doesn’t automatically respond to her though, she frowns and rolls back onto her front and crawls across the bed until she’s right at her side. Her hands skim across Chaeyoung’s legs, dragging all the way up until she’s able to push her hand underneath Chaeyoung’s shorts. Her fingers are cold and Chaeyoung wants to tell her to stop because she can’t concentrate on the show, but then Jennie uses her other hand to turn Chaeyoung’s face toward her, and then she _really_ can’t concentrate. 

“Hey,” she says again, but it’s so soft that it feels like she’s whispering it. 

Jennie bumps their noses together and strokes the skin underneath her cheek before she tugs on Chaeyoung’s ear. Chaeyoung wants to kiss her and for some reason, Jennie has always known how to read her so she doesn’t have to say it. Jennie just leans forward and presses her lips against her own. 

She kind of tastes like coffee and pasta from the room service that they had earlier, but Chaeyoung ignores it, using her hands to drag the other girl forward and pull her into her lap. Jennie goes easily, her body following Chaeyoung’s movements like she’s spent years memorizing the way she moves. 

And when they’re alone, it’s so easy between them. The only sounds are the TV and their lips as they try to follow and imitate each other. Chaeyoung remembers when they first started doing this, when they wanted to feel out what it might be like with another girl. 

It started so simple with their hands: touching the other on the shoulder, stroking her neck, grabbing her fingers, or kissing the inside of her palm. Then they would wait for the other in bathrooms, sometimes in closets, and just hug each other with the occasional kiss on the forehead or the simple whisper of, ‘later.’ 

Eventually they wanted more, it was hard _not_ to want more with Jennie. So, they would get rooms together or sneak out after a schedule and sit outside by the river or go to a convenience store, or sit inside of Jennie’s car and kiss. 

“Stop thinking so much,” Jennie says, kissing her words into her cheek and down the length of her jaw. 

Chaeyoung wants to tell her that she’s thinking about every time that they’ve ever been together. She wants to tell her that she’s thinking about what it felt like to actually touch another woman for the first time in her life and like it. She wants to tell her that she’s thinking about how it felt to kiss Jennie and the ways her lips fit differently against her own. She wants to tell Jennie that she has no idea when this thing became less about experimenting with each other, and more about getting something from the other﹣but she doesn’t. 

“I’m not thinking about anything,” she murmurs back. 

“Good,” Jennie says and pushes her hand inside Chaeyoung’s shorts.

* * *

The day before they’re scheduled to leave, Chaeyoung and Jennie go to see a movie in the morning and are able to find seats all the way in the back, since the showing isn’t packed. Jennie holds the popcorn in her lap and lets Chaeyoung use her sweater to cover her legs since the theater is cold inside and Chaeyoung had chosen to wear a skirt. 

When the previews start, they take turns grabbing handfuls of popcorn and Jennie slurps down half of her shake even though she complained that it was too sweet, but Chaeyoung knew she would drink it anyway. 

And when the lights go down and the film starts, Chaeyoung pushes her hand underneath the armrest and links their pinky fingers together, letting out a deep breath when Jennie doesn’t say anything.

* * *

**April 19, 2019**

**Inglewood, California**

In the middle of the day, Chaeyoung goes with Lisa to a café, some place with a lot of windows that allows the natural light to filter in and a menu that only serves vegetarian options. 

They find some seats at a counter looking out the window and Chaeyoung thinks it’s meant for Lisa to take pictures, but she doesn’t even have her camera with her. 

“Wanna go shopping after this?” Lisa asks her, taking a sip from her straw and turning to face her. 

There are a few strips of stores along this street with people milling up and down the sidewalk with bags on their arms. They haven’t done much shopping since they’ve been in California, but they also haven’t had that much downtime with rehearsals, interviews, and company related matters. 

“Sure,” Chaeyoung nods and she looks down at the table, pushing her straw around the inside of her cup. It’s a hot chocolate﹣which she isn’t sure why she ordered it when it’s so hot outside﹣ but it’s whatever.

When her phone buzzes in her pocket, she reaches down and pulls it out, seeing Jennie’s name across the screen and a simple, _‘hey, what are you doing?’_

It makes her chuckle because it’s not like they aren’t touring together and literally sharing a hotel room or anything. It makes her smile because it sounds like something she would say if Chaeyoung was back in Australia, not thirty minutes away from her.

**From: Chaeyoung 4:39 pm**

At a cafe with Lisa. you? 

“Who’s that?” Lisa asks, craning her neck to see who Chaeyoung’s texting. 

“Nothing,” she shakes her head. “It’s just Jennie,” she says and turns her phone over so Lisa won’t see. 

“What’d she want?”

“Just wondering what we were doing,” she shrugs. 

Lisa nods her head and stares back out of the window, watching as more people walk back and forth down the sidewalk. The sun will set soon and as it dips lower in the sky, they hang around and talk mindlessly about the concert, what they want to do when the tour is over, and if Chaeyoung will go back to France to visit her sister who’s been living there for just a little bit over a year. 

“Maybe, I don’t know.” 

She doesn’t tell Lisa that she was planning on asking Jennie to come with her. Jennie has always liked France, wanting to go to Paris to take tacky photos in front of the Eiffel Tower and eat French onion soup at a café while they pretended to know everything about the people sitting at tables all around them. 

She’s thought about it sometimes. She’s thought about what it would be like to see the Palais Garnier or go to the top of the Montparnasse Tower and see the entire city from below them. How Jennie would look if they walked around the Louvre and most of the pictures that Chaeyoung took ended up being Jennie. 

“She might like it,” Lisa shrugs and offers Chaeyoung some of her drink, but the other girl shakes her head. 

“She’s always saying shit about how French boys are cuter.”

* * *

****

**May 3, 2019**

****

**Newark, New Jersey**

They only have one day to stay in the city before they’re scheduled to leave for Georgia for the next stop on the North American leg of their tour. 

Jennie suggests that they go out to dinner, somewhere in New York City where they can get wine and good steak. Their manager pulls up a list of different spots and restaurants that they can go to and passes her phone around for the girls to decide. 

“Look at this one,” Jisoo says and turns the phone to show Chaeyoung. 

It’s called Le Relais De Venise L’Entrecote, a Parisian restaurant that says they have a selection of different wines and steaks with complementary cheesecake. Chaeyoung shrugs her shoulders and Jisoo scoffs, passing her phone back to the manager and nodding. 

“I think this place is okay.” 

So around eight, they take car into the city and Chaeyoung sits in the backseat with Jennie, trying to stare at her in the dark because she has on a short sleeveless yellow dress and the way she brushed her hair back into a ponytail makes her face look so pretty. 

When they get to the restaurant, they choose a table in the back where it’s more secluded and each go around the table ordering their dish. 

Lisa pulls up her phone to show everyone the pictures she took for Instagram and then Jisoo talks about her niece, Hayul, and the new words that she’s learned recently. Jennie talks about an upcoming solo schedule she has in Spain and then starts telling everyone a joke that’s so bad everyone around the table groans and ignores her. 

When their food comes, they eat in comfortable silence, with Lisa taking about a million pictures of her plate before she actually starts to eat about twenty minutes later. The wine is really good, a Malbec bottle of red wine and it makes Chaeyoung feel a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more less hesitant of the people around her that aren’t Jennie. 

She can feel it in the way she smiles when Jennie starts talking and all Chaeyoung does is rest her chin in her hands and watches her. She can feel it in her legs when Jennie reaches underneath the table and rests her hand on her knee, her skin feeling warm from her touch. She can feel it in her shoulder when Jennie brushes up against her and excuses herself to the bathroom about an hour later.

**From: Jennie 9:10 pm**

Come to the bathroom. I’m in the handicap stall

It feels juvenile, like something out of a movie, but Chaeyoung pockets her phone and waits ten minutes, engaging in meaningless chat with their manager before she excuses herself too. 

On the way to the bathroom, she flexes her hand and rubs her elbow, but she finds it easily enough, pushing the door open and hurriedly bends down to check the stalls. She only sees one pair of feet and it’s Jennie’s. 

Chaeyoung takes a deep breath and stands back up, quietly making her way down the stalls until she knocks softly and then pushes the stall door open. 

“I feel like Andrew Garfield when Brenda Song went down on him in The Social Network.” 

Jennie snorts and pulls her in by her wrists, watching her close the door and lock it. 

“Just be quiet and hopefully we won’t get caught.”

This close, Chaeyoung can make out the mole under Jennie’s left eyebrow and she can smell the wine on her breath and the slight smudge of her lipstick from where she must have drank from the glass. 

“Okay,” Chaeyoung whispers. Her arms wind around Jennie’s waist and she tugs the older woman closer, nosing the side of her cheek and breathing in the scent of her perfume. 

Her skin is so soft and smooth that Chaeyoung kisses it, taking her time to feel it out with her lips like she has all the time in the world. Realistically, they can’t be gone too long because their members will get worried and come looking for them, but for just a second, Chaeyoung entertains the thought that she might have enough time. 

She kisses Jennie’s eyelids, the tip of her nose, and then licks her top lip, watching Jennie exhale shakily as she follows her tongue with her eyes. 

Her fingers grab a hold of Chaeyoung’s arm, traveling up the length of her forearm before she digs her fingers into her shoulder and pulls her closer. 

“Kiss me,” Jennie breathes onto her mouth. 

“I was kissing you,” Chaeyoung murmurs. 

Jennie noses her back, only slightly, and then presses a kiss to the edge of her mouth. Chaeyoung feels drunk. She feels drunk on the wine and drunk on being in a public bathroom where anyone could just walk in, and drunk on being the only one that Jennie wants to kiss right now. 

And when she feels like this, a weird urge scratches at the back of her head, the one that wants her to say something to Jennie. That voice that wants her to ask the older girl what they’re doing. That voice that wants to ask Jennie if this is still experimenting when they’ve been doing it for months already. It rattles around in her head even stronger now, and Jennie must know that these thoughts are sitting there, waiting for Chaeyoung to say something. She has to because when Chaeyoung feels her mouth open, Jennie shakes her head. 

“Not﹣” she starts, pauses, and then licks her lips. “Not now, okay?” 

And Chaeyoung, the woman who would do anything for Jennie, who would foolishly stumble into a bathroom in the middle of a dinner with their group, nods her head. 

“Okay,” she whispers.

* * *

**May 12, 2019**

**Fort Worth, Texas**

They go to the Fort Worth Zoo on a cool day, wearing sunglasses and baseball caps so no one recognizes them. Jennie wears a white spaghetti strap top underneath a flannel shirt that billows out behind her every time she runs ahead of Chaeyoung and she can’t stop staring at her. 

At the giraffe habitat, her and Jennie stand behind a few kids and their parents, waiting patiently as they feed a handful of lettuce to the animals. 

A little boy squeals when the giraffe gets too close and ends up licking half of his face, turning into his father’s arm as he holds him up and laughs into his neck. 

When it’s their turn, Jennie holds on to the inside of her elbow and she urges Chaeyoung forward, smiling when the giraffe sniffs at her hand a few times before it eventually opens its mouth and takes it from her.

* * *

Chaeyoung sits on the toilet lid, watching as Jennie sits in the tub, the water covered in bubbles as she pulls her knees up to her chest, breaking the surface of the water. 

She had pushed her hair up into a messy knot but there are tendrils of hair that fall out and frame her face. Chaeyoung is worried that if she stares at her too long, Jennie will ask her why she’s looking at her and then she’ll have to tell her. 

She doesn’t even know why Jennie told her to come into the bathroom. It’s nearly one in the morning and Chaeyoung had been laying down with a face mask listening to her Spotify playlist, almost ready to fall asleep and yet here she was. 

She rubbed her hands down her thighs and then looked over, staring at Jennie as she rested her cheek on her knees. Her eyes are closed and there is water on her eyelashes. It’s unfair how someone can look this good when they’re in the fucking tub. 

“Come here, Chae,” Jennie whispers and Chaeyoung comes like a puppet on a string. 

She kneels down beside the tub, resting her arms on the edge and reaches with one hand out so she can hold Jennie’s thumb. She rubs the skin, feeling it wrinkle from the water, and pulls it forward so she can kiss her there. 

When she looks up, Jennie is staring at her and she wishes that for once﹣ _for once_ ﹣that she could read what was going on in her head. She wishes she could ask Jennie what the fuck they keep doing when they end up in situations like this, but Chaeyoung’s afraid. 

“Come here,” Jennie says again and even though her hands are wet, she grabs the sides of Chaeyoung’s face and pulls her close to kiss her.

* * *

Chaeyoung pulls her shirt over her head, tossing it behind her, uncaring where it lands. She reaches for her pants but Jennie knocks her hands away, fumbling with her zipper until she’s able to pull it down, and then pushing her pants off her legs. 

Neither of them say anything as Chaeyoung kicks them off and then hops on one leg to pull her socks off. 

In her bra and underwear, she waits for Jennie to undress too, helping her pull her arms through her sleeves and then tosses her skirt when she wiggles it down enough. They laugh when Jennie’s not wearing any underwear and Chaeyoung pulls her close, giving her a quick kiss that tastes like spearmint and mouthwash.

“You okay?” Chaeyoung asks her. 

Jennie walks backward, pulling the younger woman in the process, and when the back of her knees hit the mattress, she sits down and tugs Chaeyoung until she’s almost in her lap. 

“I’m okay,” Jennie nods. “I’m okay,” she says again. 

Her hands move slowly, following some unknown path up Chaeyoung’s back and over the top of her shoulders before she drags them down her chest. When she leans forward, she kisses her over her heart and Chaeyoung can feel her breath stutter in her throat. She reaches back and hurriedly unhooks her bra, pulling it off and throwing it to the side. 

Jennie looks at her face, staring at her with something in her eyes that Chaeyoung can’t comprehend. It makes her hands shake and Jennie notices that too, taking her hands in her own and kisses her knuckles. Her lips are soft and she moves her hand until Chaeyoung’s palm is pressed against her nose. 

“Do you want to do this?” Jennie whispers. 

“Y-Yeah,” Chaeyoung nods and she clears her throat, and nods again. “I do.” 

She leans down and presses a kiss to her lips, trying to convey how much she does want this, how much she does want Jennie. She pushes her fingers into her hair, tugging on the strands and licks across her bottom lip until Jennie’s mouth falls open. 

Jennie’s fingers glide down the notches of her spine, pressing into her skin, until they dance around the waistband of her underwear. She kisses Jennie harder and she must take it as another signal of Chaeyoung being okay with everything because she pushes her hand underneath it.

* * *

**May 30, 2019**

**Barcelona, Spain**

At one o’clock in the morning, Chaeyoung walks behind Jennie, their figures shrouded underneath the darkness as they walk along the sand. The waves lap at the shore softly, splashing Chaeyoung’s toes and turning the ends of her skirt damp. 

The lights from the bars along the road splays a dizzying effect of different reds, blues, and yellows across the sand, just enough that Chaeyoung can make out when Jennie spins around and starts walking backward. 

The buildings are close enough that when Chaeyoung looks out at the water, she can see the skyline reflected in the water and the lights from the boardwalk. She looks back up and Jennie has stopped walking, preferring to stare out at the water too. 

Out here by the sea, Chaeyoung can hear herself think. She can hear the different thoughts that clash and collide inside her head, and when she closes her eyes, she can see the same girl that’s occupied her thoughts for most of her entire adult life. 

It makes her walk away from the water and walk a ways up until she’s able to sit down in the sand. The grains feel cool underneath her feet and she wiggles her toes in it until she sees another pair of feet come within view. 

Jennie kneels down in front of her and pushes on her legs until Chaeyoung spreads them, so Jennie can crawl forward into her space. They’re farther out from the city that no one will notice them and the beach is practically deserted at this time, with the only people around sitting at the boardwalk or drinking on the street. 

“What are you thinking about?” Jennie asks her. 

She lays her head on Chaeyoung’s chest and the younger woman knows that Jennie can hear the way her heart is beating. It would be impossible to ignore given how much her ears are ringing. But she doesn’t answer. Instead, she wraps her arms around Jennie and tugs her forward until she can rest her chin on top of her head.

 _I want to tell you that I like you,_ Chaeyoung thinks. _I want to tell you that I can’t think right whenever I’m around you. I want to tell you that when I open my mouth and I talk to you, I want to tell you everything I’ve ever felt about you. I want to tell you that my body has never felt the same since you first looked at me. I want to tell you that I can never be with any other woman because of you._

“Chae?” Jennie whispers, asking her again. 

“It’s nothing,” she sighs and tightens her arms around Jennie. “It’s nothing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really loved writing this. i don't write about chaennie at all, but this was so much fun to do! thank you for the request and I hope you guys enjoyed this. stay safe and here's to a better year ❤️


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